Perhaps my time with the Revival Centre had me too indoctrinated, but I find the whole speaking in tongues crap still a bit puzzling.

First off let me state that I consider my an atheist though drifting more to the centre due to speaking in tongues. Now I'm pretty sure an all knowing, all powerful and all present deity is completely incompatible with free will. As such I'm pretty sure the Abrahamic God as presented cannot exist.

Reading up about Glossolalia (esp. Wikipedia) indicates that babbling away is not unique to Christianity (e.g. Shintoism.) I've also read reasonably convincing articles that babbling away predates the birth of Christianity and that speaking in tongues, esp. the Revival Centre version, cannot really be documented before the early twentieth century.

I've read many atheist fora on the speaking in tongues phenomena and have never been satisfied with the replies. I've liked a bunch of stuff Dan Barker has stated on the topic, but I still cannot resolve my experiences with what I have read. Speaking in tongues does no special cognitive thing for me. I don't feel any change in brain function (I can still complete Sodoku puzzles for example while babbling away.) I'm also fairly convinced I was not coached with my initial "tongue", though I do admit adding words into my babble from other church-goers; mostly because I thought mine had too short a vocabulary (not impressive enough.) I certainly don't fake it either which is a fairly common charge.

I have often wondered whether Glossolalia was proto-language; as in the steps a baby takes to learn to speak, but with a more adult spin to it (i.e. make it sound better than a baby does.)

However all that aside it bothers me to this day. I fail to see the point why a "wise" deity would give out such a useless gift, but and this is getting to the crux of my point, could this be an example of proof for a trickster deity, something like Loki? A deity like this could be motivated to give you pointless things like speaking in tongues. I am not saying this is the case. I just want to be able to rule it out; what's a more rational reason for this pointless "ability"?

I am hoping this forum my finally lay this to rest; mostly because I am hoping ex-Revivalist atheists have gone through the same experiences I have, and have come up with an answer.