A "serpent-handling" West Virginia pastor died after his rattlesnake bit him during a church ritual, just as the man had apparently watched a snake kill his father years before.
http://news.yahoo.com/serpent-handli...opstories.html





A "serpent-handling" West Virginia pastor died after his rattlesnake bit him during a church ritual, just as the man had apparently watched a snake kill his father years before.
http://news.yahoo.com/serpent-handli...opstories.html





I have to admit I'd love to see a church like this, though would never belong to one.





Shakers or the Potter House loonies?



Reference: Snake-handling churches.Ah, the heartland of America, home of the really wacky variations of Christianity in modern times...
Ahhh irony!
So it's a form of Christianity, but snakes feature heavily in the church?
'Cause that's what I gathered.
. . . But couldn't they do the same thing with non-poisonous (like garter) snakes?
Whatever happened to : " Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God. " ? Just wondering.
As a Druid ( American Reformed ) we love and respect nature. In doing so we leave poisonous reptiles alone as much as possible. We don't play with them.





stupid people are all over, particularly religious ones
I loved going to strip clubs; I actually made some friends there. Now things are different for the clubs and for me. As a result I am not as happy.
Customers are not entitled to grope, disrespect, or rob strippers. This is their job, not their hobby, and they all need income. Clubs are not just some erotic show for guys to view while drinking.
NOTE: anything I post here, outside of a direct quote, is my opinion only, which I am entitled to. Take it for what you estimate it is worth.





I want so badly to sit in these churches and see it live. Definitely more entertaining than a typical Roman Catholic church service.
I don't plan on being in West Virginia anytime soon though, bummer.
Women of color:
Shake your ass and preserve your heritage.
Bang those fucking drums.
Do it for the present and future generations.
Have fun and stick it to the man at the same time. (bad-dominicana)
The whole attraction of snake handling is that it's supposed to be lethal, and God is supposed to protect the handler from death. It's the same part of the Gospel according to Mark where the early Christians are encouraged to speak in tongues, drink poison and generally do other stupid shit with impunity because God will protect them.
Fundamentalist Christianity -- like Marxism -- is a closed belief system. That means, among other things, that whatever happens, no matter how insane or crazy or at variance from prediction, can still be explained away.
So this is why all these geniuses who keep dying from snake bites -- although God was supposed to protect them, right? -- are quickly forgiven by their followers by invoking a yet deeper level of stupidity, like "God decided to call him away."
You could always tap them on the shoulder and ask, "What happened to the God will protect us part?," but then they'd probably just hang you from a tree. Heathen!
The Marxists are just as blind, crazy and stupid, which is why they explained away the slaughter of tens of millions in China and the former Soviet Union and other countries in the interest of a purported greater good, which turned out to be massive and unlawful theft and personal self-enrichment. It's a great irony of history that these two groups of starry-eyed bozos ended up in the same camp.
I am just relieved that people with this level of logical rigor and grasp of reality are not in charge of our nuclear power plants.
Oh, and about the Mark gospel -- the section describing the handling of serpents and drinking poisons and speaking in tongues, all that crap? It wasn't even in Mark's original gospel. It was sort of bolted on, centuries later, like an aftermarket carburetor, and in a style of Ancient Greek composition that could not possibly have belonged to the original scribe.
So all this crazy religious fever is built on a foundation of simple fraud.
This is why they teach Ancient Greek and Latin to the Roman Catholic clergy -- somebody has to know what the hell is going on, preferably somebody who will never say the truth out loud.
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