The other day I published a post about a snake-handling Pentecostal Christian, Jamie Coots, who was recently killed by a rattler in a Kentucky Church in the service of Jesus. I also posted a link to a video showing yet another woman, Melinda Brown, killed in 1995 in the same church doing the same thing. The video showed her husband, Punkin Brown, saying that her death from the snakebite meant that it was simply “her appointment to die.” And Punkin himself died of a snakebite three years later, leaving their five kids as orphans.
Now one of these children, Sarah Brown—or someone who claims to be her—has left a comment on this site. I haven’t yet verified this as real, and may not be able to, though the geographic area checks out. And an article from the L. A. Times about Punkin’s death in 1998 and the custody battle over his children shows that he did indeed have a daughter named Sarah, and that she was five at the time. That would make her 21 now.
So let us assume, for the nonce, that the comment below is real, and from Sarah. If it is, it’s ineffably sad, and I have nothing to add.
Sarah brown commented on Religion poisons everything: Another snake-handler bites the dust
I just want to say that the word is still true no matter what happens… I am Punkin and melinda browns daughter the one pictured above and no matter what happens in this life it doesnt change Gods word… it was simply just their time to go… no matter if they were in church or driving down the road their names was called just as it was Brother Jamies [Coots] time to go…. and that is alll id like to say…
Here’s the picture of Melinda and, apparently, Sarah that accompanied my original article:
If you point a gun to your own head and pull the trigger, is it “your time to go?”
“It was simply just their time to go.”
Nothing to do with the snakes and the chances of getting bitten.
Yes, this kind of fatalism can be applied to anything.
What it tragically shows is what John Mackinnon Robertson and Thomas Edison complained about: early Christian indoctrination starts by depriving children of any semblance of critical thinking. Their thinking capability is atrophied from the very start.
If this writer is genuine, and is only 21, she has plenty of time. Some early converts to Christian cults start coming out of their lifelong dream later in adulthood, some even when reaching 60.
The innocent children of Christian fundamentalists become automatons brain-washed since babyhood to repeat consecrated Christian formulas passing for explanations of events.
They will go through life in a comatose stupor preventing them from developing any real knowledge about their everyday world.
Don’t expect them to become engineers, or scholars.
Don’t expect them to call the doctor when the children get sick. No, “it’s simply just their time to go.”
I always picture them to be in a dream like state. Kinda like when you are in a dream and when you wake up, you go wtf was I doing or thinking? It’s like their religion been rooted in their subconscious, like hypnosis. The problem is finding the key to their subconscious. Someone who perform hypnosis can snap someone out of it because they have the key. How does one snap out someone when the key was lost?
That’s a good point. If anything and everything that happens is god’s will, why is suicide a sin? Why is anything a sin?
If not everything is god’s will, how do you tell the difference? Do some events come with a “100% genuine god’s will” stamp?
If nature causes the death (earthquakes, snakes, fires) then it’s god’s will. If a human causes death then it’s because he or she has free will.
Except when God doesn’t want you to die because he has a plan. Remember how God deflected the bullet that almost killed John Paul II?
And as Dawkins has remarked, why didn’t God deflect it so as to miss him altogether?
Is purposely handling and antagonizing a known deadly snake, without protective gear, and then refusing the antivenom just “nature”? Seems there’s a huge human element there, yet it’s still being described as “god’s will”.
Free will does nothing for theists. It’s incompatible (!) with their notion of god. If they want to posit an omniscient, omnipotent god, then they can’t also claim libertarian free will.
Yes that may be so and I don’t hold those beliefs but the theists aren’t so good at philosophy as you. They hold inconsistent beliefs and they even don’t know that they hold inconsistent beliefs and don’t even care. So they believe in an omnipotent, omniscient god and in free will!
He didn’t choose to die, he chose to handle snakes according to his bizarre faith. His family thinks god chose his death.
I think there’s more to this than just religion. Think about how many dead BASE jumpers, rock climbers, extreme kayakers etc there are. None of them chose to die. They just got really, really turned on by doing dangerous shit. If you listened to these guys before they went splat, they would tell you it’s a religious experience.
But the point Greg was making is that these people think the time and method of death is divinely appointed. Even if you shoot yourself, an omnipotent god could intervene and save you if it’s not “your time”. Gun-handling is no different from snake-handling in this regard.
Except that gun-handling is not in the bible (you know, the holy word of god, blah blah blah).
You’d never know guns aren’t in the bible, the way many of these types of people display religious devotion to them.
“Think about how many dead BASE jumpers…None of them chose to die. ”
BASE jumpers most likely believe that skill reduces their chance of death; handling snakes is more like Russian Roulette.
I fly little airplanes and think my safety lies in my skill and decision-making. If death were truly random, I might think twice about it.
I fly little airplanes too. It’s way more fun than letting someone else do it.
My point is that, for whatever little understood psychological reason, doing dangerous things is exciting. Holding a deadly snake must be a heart pounding, adrenalin rush.
Some people just think that that rush is god’s gift.
“handling snakes is more like Russian Roulette”
It depends how you do it. Those guys handle snakes like it’s Russian Roulette, so for them it is (but who’s taking bets?).
I’m a herpetologist and my safety lies in my skill and decision-making…
“my safety lies in my skill and decision-making…” And protective gear.
John is much better qualified than I am to address that sort of thing…but protective gear often is a serious potential safety hazard for the snake while not offering all that much in the way of protection for the human. Snakes bite cows, right? So what makes you think a layer of cow skin is going to protect you? But it will tend to make you grip things with more force than is actually necessary, with potentially nasty consequences for the snake.
Heavy gloves make great sense for lots of large-animal handling, especially where you’re using rope or other types of sturdy equipment. But for anything human-sized, they’re questionable, and probably an hazard for anything smaller.
Of course, latex (or equivalent) exam gloves may well be called for in all sorts of circumstances, but that’s another matter entirely.
But remember: humans are intelligent, tool-using apex predators. We’re rarely the ones in danger if it comes to a serious showdown, and we’re never the ones in danger if we’ve got even the slightest bit of protection — and most doors offer all the protection you really need. The challenge isn’t to protect yourself; the challenge is to protect the animal without putting yourself at undue risk.
Cheers,
b&
Except when you are not part of the tribe. Then it’s your just punishment.
It depends on whether the gun fires or not.
(Sorry, I couldn’t help it.)
Sarah, I’m quite sorry for your loss.
You’re convinced that it was your father’s time to go. Why do you think Jesus wanted him to die? Why do you think Jesus wouldn’t have warned him to forego the snake handling that day, or to have calmed the snake so it didn’t bite your father?
How, in other words, is the world such a better place for the fact that your father died an agonizing death that Jesus chose to watch him die?
b&
I can hardly imagine what it would be like to lose parents at an early age. I could certainly see that one method of protection for dealing with the central grief and despair would be to insist that ‘it had to be that way’. It would not be my choice to believe nor would it work for me since I could not believe it to be true that that ‘was their time’.
Management of grief must ultimately and chiefly be a personal mission. It can not be wished or fantasized away. It must be recognized as a real event.
You’re right…I think what’s going on here is denial…or some type of subconscious defense-mechanism.
I have to image that coming to terms with the idea that all the adults around you as you developed into an adult were terribly wrong and your parents were lost to you for no good reason at all must be incredibly difficult.
That kind of emotional hurdle must be impossibly difficult to overcome.
You hit the nail on the head! Deconstructing your own identity, admitting you were lied to, and that the central guiding force in your life is just a book and nothing more, is a difficult task.
When I did it, leaving Catholicism, I had a moment of physical vertigo, a few days of abject fear, and now nearly thirty years of a wonder-filled life of discovery.
The decision is hard, it will be scary, but there are plenty of people here who will vouch that the journey to clear eyed honesty is worth the temporary roller coaster.
Wow, if you don’t mind me asking, how old were you when this happened?
I had a similar experience a couple of years ago and I’d say it went on for a handful of weeks. I had what most likely were panic attacks: inability to concentrate, racing pulse, a feeling of being slightly outside of my body. I hadn’t been a regular church goer for well over a decade, but when my long journey to away from it finally got to the point where the truth about all religion hit me like a hammer, that was my reaction.
I even got to the point where I resorted back to attempting prayer, asking for some kind of sign, even a benign one for God to show himself. Obviously, it didn’t happen. I moved on and my anxiety disappeared as all the mental torment about fear of Hell as a child melted away and the liberating thought that we are not eternally controlled by a vindictive omnipotent monster finally took hold.
I started “struggling” with the teachings around 18-19, and the moment involving a physical reaction came around 22.
Part of me hesitates to post that. “Silly, how could you believe this crap until you’re 22.”
All I can say is that untying the indoctrination is more complex than the un-indoctrinated might imagine.
Sorry for the slow followup on your request.
This is exactly one of the criticisms that John Mackinnon Robertson (perhaps the greatest rationalist mind of the 20th c.) listed among the incredible harms caused by the early indoctrination of Christian children.
Once those children have turned into adolescents or adults with better education and knowledge, many are condemned to years of mental torture when they discover the absurdity of the stories they had been force-fed as infants and feel compelled to make a move towards clean-sweeping their minds, stepping out and start breathing fresh air.
They have to go through the painful process of deconversion, sloughing off their old beliefs, while facing the pain and animosity their rejection of the family faith also causes to their family, loved ones, friends, and community, all unable to comprehend why their beloved child has decided to leave their tightly-knit ranks.
This may even lead to ostracizing the new black sheep, obliging the newly liberated young adult to cut off his links to his/her childhood group and start a new life as apostate — possibly fraught with anxiety and even nagging guilt feelings.
My analogy has always been that I removed a foundation keystone, and I had to set about the undesirable but necessary job of rebuilding my structure without that particular faulty block.
I also have made it a “cornerstone” of my parenting (if you’ll pardon the extend masonry metaphors) to not “illusion” my children, thus sparing them the “disillusionment.”
Honesty, openness, love. No need for the unfounded stories.
There’s nothing silly about the age at which you believe it; the silly part is the belief. I have watched as my parents, now at retirement have only gotten more religious as they age; my father is even a member of the clergy. This speaks not only to what indoctrination does, but also to the level to which is pervades society, especially in the United States–religion is certainly a brilliant control mechanism. “Everyone has doubts but that’s why you have to keep building your faith, take the narrow path; stay focused; etc.” I would imagine that someone long ago figured out that most rational humans will see through the charade at a fairly young age. I know I did, but I stuck with it for a long time because there’s that trump card–the threat of hell.
If we had any evidence whatever that eternal torture was possible and there was a method by which you could avoid it, it would be rational to do so, even if that’s kowtowing to the “celestial North Korea.” Instead, what’s clear, once one gets past the emotional grip of this childhood indoctrination is that at its very foundation, eternal punishment is infinitely immoral at any level, even more so when there’s no evidence it can or will be implemented. Thankfully, I learned many lessons from my childhood, chief among them is that I’m going to teach my kids how to think, not what to think. I was very happy when, a couple of weeks ago, my 6 year old son asked, “Dad, who made God?” I congratulated him and told him now he’s reached the crux of the problem; don’t ever stop asking questions.
It’s not a personal mission if the child has been brainwashed to believe that, no matter what the circumstances, it is god’s will. This insulates the parents from their children’s anger at their suicidally reckless behavior. This is criminal irresponsibility on their parents’ part. And only possible with religion.
Remember: It’s only God’s will for you if some authority figure confirms it. Don’t go trying to assert that YOU will decide for yourself. :-). “How prideful,” the priest will tell you, that you dare to think you understand the mind of God and what he wants for you!” Never noting the irony that HE thinks he knows god’s will for me, and strangely it coincides with his interests. Susan B. Anthony got it right.
chrisbuckley80:
“eternal punishment is infinitely immoral at any level”.
Yes, frightening the miserable, illiterate, uneducated,undernourished, European populations with the horrifying images of hell is one of the most unforgivable crimes of Christianity against humanity.
But, what’s even more immoral is
filling innocent children’s imagination with the terror of the tortures and fires of hell, and destroy their natural joyful impulse for fun and play.
Catholic churches used to print comic-style books full of demoniac images derived from the most diabolical inventions of medieval painters and engravers, sure to poison any child’s mental equilibrium for years to come, if not for life.
It’s the monstrosity of the threat of hell that seemed so utterly unacceptable to a humble professor of Hebrew and Oriental Languages in Hamburg, Hermann Reimarus (d. 1768). His instinctive repulsion to the Christian horror stories led him to become the first to analyze the authenticity of the NT story and concluding that it was a gigantic construction larded with fraud. He never dared publish his ideas during his lifetime. But they set into motion the question of the existence of the historical Jesus, which is now beginning to seriously undermine the foundations of Christian beliefs.
That all the populations around the Mediterranean and the rest of Europe could swallow uncritically the fictional mumbo-jumbo of Christian hell and Christian heaven for about 20 centuries is a powerful testimony on the inherent gullibility of the human mind. Imagination is the greatest tool, but also the greatest trap.
You might also want to look up Michael and Debi Pearl. They’ve written a very influential book called ‘To Train Up a Child’*
It’s basic premise is that children are born infested with demons that the parents must beat out of them. If the formation of your mind begins with hell on earth you can imagine how easily it can be bent to believe in hell in the hereafter.
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*I call it ‘To F*ck Up a Child’
I’m familiar with this book, not from having read it, but from the news stories over the years. It seems every few months, there’s another story about some nut job who takes this book to heart and ends up killing a kid. Of course, this book wouldn’t be possible were it not for another book that they interpret quite literally.
The point of snake handling is to demonstrate what is written in gospel of Mark. That they, the handler’s could take up the serpent and if or when bitten, they will not suffer ill effects. Also that they could drink poison and come to no harm. So that being the case dying from the snake bit is not a matter of their time to go. Nope according to their very own beliefs, they cannot be true Christian’s. Those miraculous signs didn’t follower the now dead believer. Of course it’s all load of $hit. They cannot get their beliefs or their god off the hook if they believe that interpolated passage to be the literal word of god. Sorry Sarah, handling snakes and drinking poison can be and often is deadly. It wasn’t just their time to go, they should have questioned such silly, demonstrably false beliefs and stuck around to finish raising their brood.
The inescapable conclusion is that Punkin’s faith wasn’t strong enough. This, according to snake handlers, is the cause of his death.
I am sorry for your loss, Sarah.
Also worthy of note is the fact that the passage in Mark about the snakes and poison is not original. Some scribe at some point added it on, it’s not in the oldest and best extant copies.
This, of course, has been known by biblical historians and ‘sophisticated’ theologians for, IIRC, a few hundred years. But they dare not share that with the rest of the Christians because who knows what would happen if they knew that the holy book has been altered over the years.
Even if you believe in Christianity, there’s no getting around the fact that the passage at the end of Mark is fake.
I’m sorry Sarah but your parents died for a lie.
Mark 16:17-20: “And these signs will accompany those who believe: In my name they will drive out demons; they will speak in new tongues; they will pick up snakes with their hands; and when they drink deadly poison, it will not hurt them at all; they will place their hands on sick people, and they will get well.”
After the Lord Jesus had spoken to them, he was taken up into heaven and he sat at the right hand of God. Then the disciples went out and preached everywhere, and the Lord worked with them and confirmed his word by the signs that accompanied it.”
Levitation would have been SO much better. I mean, when a guy is levitating 15 centimeters off of the ground I bet you really pay attention to what he is saying. Holding a snake or claiming that his drink is poison… meh, not so much.
Sarah’s comment that it “doesn’t change God’s word” is drolly ironic. The passage in the Bible that these crazy people base their behavior was almost certainly NOT in the original gospel, and was later added by a scribe who was dissatisfied with a boring ending:
http://ehrmanblog.org/snake-handling-gospel-mark/
It seems God word was indeed changed…
We will never know the extent of these folks’
delusions – it is fatuous to extend sympathy for their loss, because they do not see it as loss, just a temporary separation – aaarrrgh !!
It is not silly or pointless to extend sympathy to another human being. It is one of the qualities of a decent human being, even if you have profound theological differences with that person.
Well said, I agree.
I have no idea how old you two are, but I am in my mid-80’s. Many years ago I stopped apologising at Christian funerals for the loss of a loved one, because I was told in no uncertain terms that “we’ll meet again in heaven”. I stand by my original comment.
Old enough, thank you. 😀
Well, ~90% (I’d guess) of the funerals/memorial services/whatevers I’ve been to have been Christian, and my experience has been that most of the bereaved are still emotionally devastated and welcome sympathy. And I think for my own sake I’d have to offer it, no matter how well or poorly received. But perhaps I just haven’t been to any uber-fundie rites.
No one is arguing for accommodationism here, only civil behavior. Ben’s comment (#2 above) is an excellent example of being sympathetic and civil without giving any ground on theological matters.
Absolutely! My one feeling about this girl (now a woman) is immense sadness for her loss, regardless of how she takes it.
Yes, the famous concept of a “decent human being”, which pops up at irregular intervals.
Some writers base their whole conception of human life on this abstract, vague, concept of an ideal man.
Like “spiritual”, it raises the question, where does the concept come from? What are its connotations? What is the origin of the word, of the idea? Who, what time, what place? Does the idea have a “Sitz im Leben”, a historical and cultural environment? What is it used for? To spread what kind of beliefs?
Is it just a nice version of the secular Christian good man, which it seems to resemble pretty closely?
Is it the modern version of what the medieval French called the “noble man”, the “gentilhomme” (gentle man, decent man) which became “gentleman” in England?
How does the “decent man” differ from the “good man”, the “honest man”, the “man of good will”, the “man of great heart”, all transpositions of simplified Christian ideas?
For the ancient Hebrews, it was the “righteous man”, for the ancient Greeks, many nuances, depending on the school of philosophy, the “just man”, the “good man”, “the man of knowledge/wisdom”, etc.
Is the “decent man” just shorthand for a set of expectations that remain implicit as if they were spontaneously understood by the members of our group. Moses didn’t think so, Jesus neither, the writers of the Constitution also wanted things explicit. And which group are we implying?
The appeal to the obligations of the “decent man” leaves me as perplexed as the revelations of the “spiritual man”. It sounds too much like an uncritical version of a Christian concept.
Is the “decent man” somewhere on the tree of life of the “Descent of Man”? Hard to tell, without unfolding the set of its connotations, revealing what the assumptions are, and on what bias or dogmatic preferences they are based.
In other words, it is not convincing by the mere invocation of its implicit meaning. It has to be made explicit by mentioning some objective commandments, rules, laws.
+1!
I hope that was tongue-in-cheek.
I think for many the idea that it is a temporary separation is what they claim to believe, what they try to believe, while in their gut they still feel the loss just as acutely and finally as any unbeliever. I have no doubt there are exceptions, but even as a child I found the grief obviously felt by adults at these loss to be oddly out of sync with our claimed fundamentalist beliefs.
My sympathies to anyone suffering loss, however they experience it.
John Perkins:
This is the key point. Christians, imbued with the Christ-Spirit, have different beliefs, and those beliefs affect (through ordinary neuronal connections) the feelings and emotions they can perceive as generated in their brains. Honest believers simply do not feel exactly like the rest of non-believers.
Paul was the first to express this strange doctrine, that the dead are not departed, but are reunited with the Lord, and are waiting for us to join them later. So the separation is not final, it’s only a temporary separation.
The doctrine was clearly enunciated by Paul in his epistle, 1 Thessalonians 4:13-14:
“13 But we do not want you to be uninformed, brothers, about those who are asleep [i.e. dead], that you may not grieve as others [the unbelievers] do who have no hope. 14 For since we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so, through Jesus, God will bring with him those who have fallen asleep [are now dead].” Paul concludes “18 Therefore encourage one another with these words.”
The new beliefs have a direct emotional impact.
So,whatever the feelings that may affect us, “who have no hope” (the unbelievers), they are not felt the same way by true Christians.
So, yes, as long as their brains and emotions are not completely hijacked by their Christian beliefs (hence they are not fanatical 100% Christian, but say 75%, or even liberal 50%, and as is often the case in our modern cities, lackadaisical, social, 25%), then their minds are receptive to the natural sympathy and compassion of their friends and acquaintances.
But the fanatical 100% Christian would remain closed to any sense of tragic loss, as the young lady here (if the letter is authentic) indicates: No need to make a tragedy out of it, it is simply that “their time had come”.
So our condolences and show of sympathy are not going to be as valued as in the case of a person who perceives the loss as final.
Our sharing her grief may not have the desired consolation effect that we intend, even when we advertise to the whole world that our “sympathy and prayers go to the family” (as the New York Post repeats on the occasion of any reported death)
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But Christian fanatics are relatively rare, and, remain, nonetheless, biologically natural human beings. And so, as was mentioned by Diane G. “most of the bereaved are still emotionally devastated and welcome sympathy. And I think for my own sake I’d have to offer it, no matter how well or poorly received.”
The rites, ceremonies, and lamentations about the dead are still geared to the benefit of “us, who are alive” (as Paul says).
One result of her parents’ demise is that she seems to be poorly educated, seen from her use of the English language.
My guess is that even if her parents survived, she would still be poorly educated.
Hello!
The woman appears to have Down Syndrome, as evidenced by her broad forehead and her eyes. If so, she has an intellectual disability which could account for her poor use of the English language. I work with people with Down Syndrome, and she is actually very far ahead of most of her peers in her use of language. Unfortunately, reasoning skills are usually affected, so she may never reason her way out of her current beliefs. Very unfortunate…
While I certainly don’t want to make light of the tragedy you’ve described or its deplorable manifestation of egregious child abuse – did you know that the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, which might reduce the incidence of that crime by defending a child’s right to freedom of religion, has been signed by every country in the world except Somalia, South Sudan and the United States, a situation that Obama has described as “embarrassing” [understatement of the year], and one due largely to “the opposition of religious conservatives”? – I would have thought that, given your apparent commitment to “hard determinism”, you would have been more sympathetic to that “time to go” trope or meme.
All right, Steersman, you are out of line here. A two-year-old child doesn’t have any degree of freedom at all; she was forced to lose her parents because of their stupid beliefs. And believe me, we can influence people to stop this kind of delusion, a delusion that kills children, through environmental influence, i.e. calling them out.
Your comment is ludicrous, insensitive, and should have embarrassed you. I suggest you stop frequenting this site; I don’t want your nonsense here.
And, in fact, you have made light of this tragedy. You’re just too obtuse to realize it.
“I would have thought that, given your apparent commitment to “hard determinism”, you would have been more sympathetic to that “time to go” trope or meme.”
I don’t think you probably don’t understand the free will discussions.
But our host also has no choice but to be unsympathetic to the false attribution of causality for the hard determinism inherent in the snake handler’s death (e.g. the false claim that God made it his time to go vs the true fact that his time to go has been inevitable as a matter of physics since the last quantum event made a macroscopic contribution this person’s life history).
😉
Well done +1
Just an aside…. could the President not sigh on behalf of the USA?
Who or what has to be on board for this to be signed?
Sorry…. sign. Obama probably already sighs a lot.
Yes, I think a lot of world leaders sigh on behalf of the countries they represent. 🙂
It has been signed, but not ratified, which means it is not yet binding.
Sorry, I didn’t really answer your question with my reply. Treaties are signed by the president (or a representative thereof) and then submitted to the senate which must approve it with a 2/3 majority, then it goes back to the president (could be a different one) who signs it to make it binding. That 2/3 majority is the stumbling block. It’d probably pass a majority of the Democratically controlled Senate now but they’d need some Republican votes to get to the 2/3 majority. That seems unlikely given the current Republican ideological makeup. The U.S. wrote a lot of it and signed it way back in 1995. Though signed under Clinton he didn’t submit it to the senate. I’d wager for political reasons, that he estimated that it’d fail to pass and cost him some support he needed for other things, but that’s just my speculation. I suspect Obama hasn’t submitted it to the senate for the same reason: he judges that it’d probably fail and wouldn’t serve his other political interests.
Sub.
sub
If there’s one thing this incident has shown, it’s that religionists are really capable of being determinists. They seem to revert to determinism when tragedy strikes, then right back to libertarian free will when times get better. And as expected, they believe that determinism robs them of responsibility for their own actions.
That’s right…pick whichever position is a convenient explanation for the situation.
Agreed. I think this argument is under used.
i.e. Does God know the future? Oh he does? So your life is already determined and he didn’t grant you feel will? What’s that? Oh now he doesn’t know the future? Huh?
It’s not so much a question of whether God knows the future. It’s whether we have the power to change the future. Relatives of the snake bite victims believe they couldn’t have changed the future; that God would have struck them dead regardless of how they lived their lives. Like Final Destination.
It is a question of god knowing the future. If god knows how things will unfold then the future is set. We are not free to do anything other than what god knows, has ordained, we will do.
My father told me about a conversation he once had with a priest on the issue of free will vs. an all-knowing God. He asked if Judas could have decided not to betray Jesus. The priest said yes, Judas had free will. But, my father said, Jesus predicted that Judas would betray him; if Judas didn’t, that would mean Jesus was wrong (an impossibility in the eyes of Christians). How to reconcile the two? The priest had an answer: “Faith!”
It does no good to point out inconsistencies in religion. The only answer you’ll get is “You have to have faith.” It doesn’t answer the question, but it ends the discussion.
I just remembered the old line, “To a believer, no explanation is necessary; to an unbeliever, no explanation will make sense.”
But Jesus *knew* that Judas would not decide not to betray him! 😉
(Am I wrong, or was there a version of the story in which Jesus intended Judas to betray him?)
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I never understood why Judas is not a hero. If Jesus doesn’t die for our sins, we’re in deep doo doo.
Yes!
And why the Jews were reviled in the Middle Ages as “Christ killers”. He *had* to die to redeem our sins! We should be grateful!!
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Judas was a hero… Jesus not so much (never bothered to answer all those pesky questions — and didn’t have quite the nice set of pipes Judas did). At least according to the Gospel of Andrew Lloyd Webber.
Heaven On Their Minds is my favorite!
Was Jesus all that hard to find? Were the local authorities that inept?
Is bus-handling mentioned in the Bible?
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🙂
Well there’s iron chariots. Even god gets flattened by those.
Judges 4:13-16
Coming at speed? Unexpectedly? Good enough.
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She wasn’t appealing to determinism, at least not the style that Jerry and I believe we have. She was talking about fatalism, something very different. That’s the idea that some things will just happen, and even if we do something to prevent it, those things will just happen in some other way. We could prevent them from handling snakes in church, but then they would just get killed in a traffic accident on that day instead.
That view is like they believe they have libertarian free will, but live under the thumb of a capricious God who will take them out at the appointed time no matter what.
Very good point. One thing that I like about this kind of fatalism that it can be empirically tested (and refuted): pick 100 snake handlers, randomly divide them into two groups and measure their life expendency.
c.f. Calvinists.
I think you’re right, so essentially these Pentecostals are actually all compatibilists in a world indeterministic to them due to God’s existence.
I see.
“no matter if they were in church or driving down the road their names was called just as it was Brother Jamies [Coots] time to go”
Thing is, those whose names were called while “driving down the road” didn’t bring harm and kill themselves recklessly and intentionally.
I resent her comparison.
Way better in church. Far less likely to involve some innocent person in their accident.
I have heard when your time is come comments from a fair number of people whom I did not know to be religious.
Same here. Along the same lines as, “things happen for a reason.”
Entrenched cultural deepities?
Or even just “shit happens.”
Well, shit *does* happen.
Just not always for a Reason™.
You’ve probably seen something like this (different version are all over the interwebs):
COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS OF WORLD RELIGIOUS PHILOSOPHIES
TAOISM Shit Happens
CONFUCIANISM Confucius says, “Shit Happens.”
ZEN What is the sound of shit happening?
YOGA There’s a full lotus shit happening.
TRANSCENDENTAL MEDITATION Shit. Shit. Shit. Shit. Shit. Shit…….
HINDUISM This shit has happened before.
ISLAM If shit happens, it is the will of Allah.
CATHOLICISM If shit happens, you deserve it.
FUNDAMENTALISM If shit happens, they deserve it.
PROTESTANTISM Let shit happen to someone else.
EPISCOPALIANISM When shit happens, make it tasteful.
JUDAISM Why does shit always happen to US?
MORMONISM Shit’s going to happen. Stockpile.
UNITARIANISM Deal with your own shit happening.
TWELVE STEP PROGRAMS. We’re powerless over shit. Turn shit over.
ASTROLOGY Uranus transits.
PERESTROIKA We can’t control shit. Let shit happen.
AGNOSTICISM Shit may or may not be happening; we don’t know shit.
ATHEISM No shit.
GNOSTICISM Know shit.
yup:-)
That one actually angers me. I hate it when something bad happens & someone says that. I now don’t politely stay silent but explain how things don’t happen for the reason they think but happen because of cause & effect. In other words, in exchange for annoying me with faulty logic, I annoy them with an iron clad explanation they didn’t want to hear! 🙂
I hate it too, and plan to adopt your strategy. 😀
Cause and effect: for example when you mount the tp backwards bad stuff happens:-)
That’s why I fix it. So bad things won’t happen to good people who don’t know any better. 🙂
Remember that take-off book: When Bad Dogs Happen to Good People?
The fact that people take comfort from such a bromide, or think it is worth saying, demonstrates how unthinking those people are.
If you ask me, it raises more questions than it answers. Which is unsurprising since it answers zero questions.
Fundamentalism in any religion bothers me, and it causes a great deal of pain on this planet. That’s what happens when you try to take an interpretation literally. Snake handlers, funeral protestors, jihad… it makes me sad. I’ve spent a great deal of time reading on different philosophies and religions. I don’t close my mind and feel like any one of them has all the answers or take any of it literally. I feel that by stepping back, and looking at the whole, I’ll be better able to understand what I see in front of me.
Just as they believe it was these people’s time to go, they must believe that I’m the person ‘God’ created me to be, whether they agree with me or not. Lacking a single faith doesn’t mean I’m not human. It doesn’t mean I’m bad, and even if it did, that’s between me and ‘God’. I wish fundamentalists spent more time looking past the fence at the edge of their yard. I wish, for once in history, we could all get along and stop judging eachother.
I think her position makes perfect emotional sense, and for her that will trump logic, as it does for most of us in less extreme situations. Calling her position ‘stupid’ (as Richard Dawkins just tweeted) is, I thimk, unhelpful as it suggests only poor rationality is at work here, or even perhaps low IQ, and I don’t think that’s what’s going on at all.
The kid had, as I see it, at least 2 choices:
1) Believe what her parents had told her, in which case they were loving thoughtful people who cared for her, and so there is some degree of hope and comfort in her memories of them; or
2) Disbelieve it, in which case her parents died tragically and heartbreakingly for no good reason, and that so taken were they by nonsensical ideas that this trumped even their desire to be there for, and love, their children.
She seems to have chosen option 1), for pretty understandable emotional reasons. If she had chosen 2) she would likely have had a total breakdown or worse. I don’t know for sure how I might have reacted in the same situation, but I suspect it would probably have been in a very similar way. So I won’t be judging her, or her intelligence, for her choice.
True.
Also, parents are people. Even loving parents can make mistakes, can suffer from delusions, can err themselves and their families into harm. That doesn’t mean her family didn’t love her, or weren’t trying to do their best by her, or that her memories of them, even if she ultimately decides they were deluded, can’t be essentially positive. My parents did me no favors by raising me as a fundamentalist but they were sincerely trying. They really did love me even though I think I was harmed by that kind of upbringing. They didn’t know they were harming me. They thought they were saving me. And so I have nothing but fond feelings for my parents, and sympathy also for the fears and delusions they suffered under which led them to raise me as they did. I think the same can be true for this woman. Ultimately she does not have to choose between loving and thinking fondly of her parents and agreeing with them or imitating them.
Indeed. In the end we must give up our judgments about people, and learn to judge actions instead.
And, as you say, the choice I imagined for her is not necessarily an either/or, but nevertheless it is the kind of understandable false choice that many people become trapped in and require some kind of therapeutic input to resolve. Especially likely to be true of those who’ve suffered severe loss and trauma as she has. I hope that one day she sees an alternative option like the one you found. Very tricky to embrace acceptance of others when one’s whole upbringing is based on judging them, though. Glad you found a way out of that one. 🙂
Another very nice comment +1
Very good.
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Poor ‘soul’. She’s been brainwashed by her parents and religious community, into thinking what they’ve done is any way linked to a greater truth.
It’s all very sad. Even more sad that this big fraud is being perpetuated via the offsprings of these deluded people. I wish they’d wake up and smell the coffee, and leave the poor snakes in peace.
Yes, I thought this was sad too but I’m sure she would see me as deluded as I see her. I think it’s tragic and so much was lost.
Yes, there’s the rub — the impasse! Is there a way out of this maze of delusions and lies and brainwashing?
I’m not convinced that the world would necessarily crumble for many of these poor deluded folks, like Glen at 13 thinks could happen, should they suddenly realize their parents’ (and others’) mistakes. The truth can be excruciatingly painful, but it can be very freeing and healing too.
She certainly does.
It’s tough to emerge from that type of indoctrination with ones sense intact.
A scientist friend of mine once described the experience his brother had when, after suffering some serious financial reverses, decided to go to Saudi Arabia for a few years to pile up another nest egg. Of all the things he disliked about the place, the religious fatalism was the saddest, most depressing, most frustrating part of his experience.
I remember him relating the story of some Saudi princeling going out and getting killed while recklessly riding a motorcycle at high speed without a helmet and … it is the will of Allah. Nothing you can do about that.
How ineffably sad indeed.
sub
So it’s not that God is going to keep you safe while playing with snakes, but that playing with snakes offers him an easy way to kill you when your time comes. Do I have that right? So the Bible is wrong about that? I’m so confused, I thought the whole point was that Christians can play with snakes and stay alive INSTEAD of dead.
So, God decides when one’s number is up yet we also have free will? If someone attempts suicide and it was God’s time, then wouldn’t we statistically expect, at least on some occasions, that an aborted suicide attempt would result in God immediately smiting them? And, if that isn’t the case, the implication is that people only attempt and succeed at suicide when God wants them to. Where is the freedom in that?
Exactly.
There is no freedom when one posits an omniscient and omnipotent god.
Nor justice, nor meaning nor purpose to life, nor anything but being jerked around by the puppet strings of the ultimate sadist.
b&
I once attended a memorial service for a veteran who committed suicide. The Commander of his American Legion Post said, “God knew he was in pain, so He called him home.” I was surprised to hear that God told him to shoot himself in the head.
Sadly still deluded.
And I note:
– Whatever happens, life or death, it acts as reinforcement of the delusions.
– There is a not so nice comparison between those who harm snakes for show and those who who try to live harmless, valuable lives and ends up dead in car accidents.
This is just depressing on so many levels. 🙁
Ultimately, in a deterministic universe, it *was* their time to go.
The missive to you might well be genuine. Without trying to be funny, fundamentalist beliefs seem to correlate with a serious problem with apostrophes.
Though I can’t see why. :/
Poor girl…..brainwashed by fanatics
I am not expert in the matter, but I wondered if the child in the picture had Down syndrome before it was mentioned here.