On speaking in tongues

I read the following today:

Some churches refuse to allow speaking in tongues because it causes fights.

This is fascinating. It suggests that the church believes that speaking in tongues isn't a gift from God (because if it were, who would the church be to impose rules on God?), but something which the potential speakers can control, which suggests a deep-rooted belief that speaking in tongues is nothing but an act.

This is a neurological study of what happens in the brain when the person is speaking in tongues. The findings in it suggest that people can learn to lose control of themselves, on command. This explains how it gets easier for people to speak in tongues as a conscious decision, and it even explains how, as the first article says, it is possible for churches to teach their members how. This article mentions that the activity is associated with the frontal lobe of the brain, also coincidentally the part of the brain associated with speech (link).

So, while it looks real, and might even seem real to the person doing it, speaking in tongues involves a conscious order to do so. There is also a social motivation to do so which has nothing to do with God and everything to do with selfishness.

From an atheist's perspective, this is all fascinating, because if you don't believe in God, then you don't believe that speaking in tongues is a gift from God. From that perspective, it's all an act. However, it's an act that takes some skill, which you can learn to do. It's an act that can fool even the actor.

So do these tongue-speakers learn how to do this consciously, or subconsciously? The idea behind speaking in tongues is to surrender control of yourself to God, but if God is all in your head, and control of yourself is all in your head, do you subconsciously learn to lose control of yourself, assuming that God will take the wheel? Or do you do it to fool the masses? Do you fool the masses by acting, or by displaying this skill?