To atheists (Guess God is giving you guys some help on this)

[ate]

Explain the thing they do at some churches where they just grab hold of your body and the next thing you know is that you're lying on the groudn and can barely move.

I forgot what this is called, something with the word sprirt in it. I just can't remember though.

What is that called I hear about it all the time, it can't be fake the pastor or preacher knocks down like 80 people at one time in thise one thing they called the domino effect.

[LostCause]

I know what you're talking about.

When I was a kid I used to watch these religious shows (yea, I was a fun kid) where a pastor would shout all kinds of things in a southern accent and then knock a bunch of deaf and blind people down "with the powerful of the lord Jesus."

I asked my mum if she'd take me to see one of those shows, because, well, this is the kind of stuff that I get a kick out of and she took me to a Christian church. The pastor wore thick glasses and looked like he molested children but he had the thick southern accent and shouted "Amen" a lot.

But, people kept jumping around, screaming, and falling on the floor, convulsing. I asked my mum why they kept going crazy and she told me they were "drunk on Jesus."

Being, eight years old, I wasn't interested in getting drunk on Jesus and I was afraid that this phenomenon was going to force me to jump, scream, and fall down and I was wearing my good dress.

So, I asked to leave, but mum said it would be rude. So, I stayed in the bathroom until after the sermon. Then she spoke to the pastor and told him I was very interested in religious sciences. I didn't want to talk to the guy, because he was creepy, but she pulled my ear and called it rude.

She told him I had chronic ulcers in my stomach and if he would heal me. I'm pretty sure she was just doing this to get back at me for making her take me there.

Anyways, he put his hand on my stomach and started praying in this low voice and called two church ladies in homemade dresses over to chant to my stomach. I was so scared I nearly pissed myself. But, nothing happened and then we left.

I've been to a lot of churches and sat in on a lot of sermons, including voodoo posession ceremonies, and the Christian ceremonies have been the most frightening.

Cheers,

Lost

[mksnowboarder]

ah yes, i remember these. my grandma used to take me to them at church. its simply religious fervor. the christians believe in it, and they act accordingly, in this case passing out. i remember my grandma fell over every time, and i never felt a thing.

[ate]

I seriously doubt that you didn't feel a thing.

My family on my mother's side is all pretty religious. My ex-uncle and cousin in-law are pastors and own a huge line of churches. I remember going as a little kid down in Florida to where most of them live and my mom making me go to the church. It was a huge church with each side separated boys into girls, there were probably around 90 kids in there.

Anyway the whole sermon went through a to my surprise, thinking of it now I can't remember any of it. It ended and my mom came with my aunt, who is the most relgious bitc-person in the world.

She took us all back, my two other sisters and me, and we went to go get something done. I'm surprised that I can't remember what this is called either, but most of it involved us laying down and some dude standing over us in a pool of sweat ( literally, they had to clean the floors afterwords) Whatever it was we were supposed to be able to talk to God by just rambling certain words and noises out of our mouth, talking in tongue or whatever.

After that we got out and the lady that was there was good friends with our family and for the next few minutes we had fun letting her knock us down each time she put her hands on us and saying something korny like the "power of jesus". The next week we had to go again and half the sermon ended up being like that. She set up all the kids holding hands standing in front of their chairs. she touched one of the kids on the far end and fucking the whole row just collapsed back into their chairs going up and down like dominoes.

This was like the funnest week of my life because I would stand there and wait for my turn to come, and think in my mind that I would try to hold back and not let it knock me down. Everytime I coudln't stand it, I would just fallbackwards into y chair like everyone else.

I was old enough too, to not just "go along" with it and fall down for the fun of it, I would more to be able to fuck that and stay standing rather than to uncontrollably fall down. It was fun though.

The weirdest thing was the after feelings. When you hit the chair you kind of just felt dazed. This is extremely korny as well, but it felt like the best high. It was so cool, you weren't sad and you weren't angry or wondering why you felt whatever you did. I'm trying to literally go back to that time and re-experience the feelings and visual memories, I had it for only a second but I could feel everything well enough. It feels like you were beeling lifted and had no worries or pains or anything physical or mental like that. I don't know; strange.

I wish there was a way for me to show other people this, skeptics. I've never seen what happened bakc then, on T.V. or in any other place before or after so this was stranger for me than it could've been for you. Also because I actually was affected.

I guess there are obvious religious and non-religious explanation to both of our stories.

[Raider101]

maybe you slammed your head to hard when you landed on the pew. I've seen some of the most avid believers of this technique go on talk shows. They said that "the power of Jesus" was so strong in them that they could not stop moving 24/7. So they sat there and convulsed on the Montel Williams show while the nation looked at them make a jackass of themselves (they sat there moving their heads like they had Parkinsons' Disease).

I wonder how they sleep?

Yea, I would be a dick and stay standing just to break the domino effect. But that is just me.

[ate]

^That's pretty funny.

I seriously doubt you would be able to stand.

IT'S ME, for Christ's sake,(no pun intended) I fuck EVERYTHING up, trust me, if I couldn't, you can't.

[Rust]

quote: IT'S ME, for Christ's sake,(no pun intended) I fuck EVERYTHING up, trust me, if I couldn't, you can't.

That's what countless of other people say, when with a "hypnotist" and then they start barking like a dog.

Consciously or unconsciously, suggestion and peer pressure are powerful…

[Craftian]

What Rust said. Not only this, but similar phenomena are seen in a number of different sects and religions. If this were any evidence, only the "true" religion would have any such experiences.

[Dualtenz]

People have fallen for dumber things, but why the fuck would an all powerful diety give a preacher the power to knock people down with words?

How stupid are you? Yeah, that's definately very godlike... "Holy Shit, Something just made me fall, must have been God's will."

[LostCause]

That's nice, ate.

All I felt was fear.

Cheers,

Lost