Jamie Coots, snake-handling preacher, dies of snakebite

[RussBLib]

It's sad and hilarious at the same time.

http://www.kentucky.com/2014/02/16/3092068/jamie-coots-well-known-snake-handling.html

I have no doubt that the brainless sheep in his church will continue to have faith. Jamie was simply "called home" by God. How many people have died because of a mis-translation?

[Hoppy]

1. They don't believe the wanker was called home by god.

Rather, that his faith wasn't strong enough to defeat the debil.

[onager]

2. I grew up near some of these churches.

They used to be very secretive. And for good reason - even in the god-addled Deep South, their deeply cherished religious ceremonies were illegal. No telling how many people got bitten and the story never got into the media, in the good old days.

Many years ago, the staff of the "Foxfire" books got access to one of the snake-handling churches in North Georgia and did an article with photos. The Foxfire people lived in the area and had contacts who allowed them in. (I grew up not far away from there.)

But generally the snake-handlers avoided publicity and kept to themselves. Everybody knew where their churches were, so anybody who wanted could go to a service.

One problem they never had was supply. That part of the South is well stocked with Eastern Diamondback rattlers, copperheads, and water moccasins. I really hated water moccasins. When I was a kid, every spring we had to chase them out of the ponds and creeks where we went swimming.

I was diving into a pond one day, just as my peripheral vision saw something slide off the bank and glide into the pond. Trust me, Jesus is not the only guy who ever walked on water...

[Auggie]

3. No sorrow here ...

the moron got what he deserved

[mr blur]

4. Evolution in action nt

[FiveGoodMen]

5. Boyd tried to warn him.

Wait. That was a TV show.

[Beachwood]

6. Death Of Kentucky Snake Handler Doesn't Shake Local Beliefs

"People think they will stop handling snakes because someone got bit, but it's just the opposite," said Ralph Hood, a professor of psychology at the University of Tennessee, Chattanooga, who has been studyingsnake handlers for decades. "It reaffirms their faith."

The practice of snake handling in the United States was first documented in the mountains of East Tennessee in the early 20th Century, according to Paul Williamson, a professor of psychology at Henderson State University who, along with Hood, co-wrote a book about snake handlers called, "Them That Believe." In the 1940s and 1950s, many states made snake-handling illegal, but the practiced has continued, and often law enforcement simply looks the other way.

The basis for the practice is a passage in the Gospel of Mark. In the King James Version of the Bible, Mark 16:17-18 reads: "And these signs shall follow them that believe; In my name shall they cast out devils; they shall speak with new tongues; They shall take up serpents; and if they drink any deadly thing, it shall not hurt them; they shall lay hands on the sick, and they shall recover."

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/death-of-snake-handler-doesn-t-shake-beliefs?utm_content=buffere9821&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=buffer

What is there to say? The infinite loop, or the Catch 22 about religious "thinking".

[FiveGoodMen]

7. More Darwin Awards on the way ...

[frebrd]

8. Poor damn snake .....

got tired of being harrassed. I don't blame it. I'd have bitten him, too, unless I could manage to kick him in the balls.

[trotsky]

9. And that right there is the biggest danger of religious beliefs.

They're non-falsifiable. Handle snakes and never get bit? Proof of god's power! Someone gets bitten and dies? Proof everything is in god's hands!

At least the snake handlers only take themselves out, but I do feel bad for their families who have to suffer the loss.

[Beachwood]

10. Absolutely, and those that "defend" the rights of all people with any religious beliefs

are the worst types of religious liberals out there. They actually commend any act of faith, against all logic and factual knowledge, as long as it doesn't stop them by being personally restricted or penalized by those beliefs. It's fine for the largest major Christian church, the Catholics, to be against abortion, as long as they can have an abortion if they need one. It's fine for the leader of that Catholic church to preach against same sex love, as long as the religious liberals and their family and friends are not restricted by church or government from having a same sex relationship if they want them. They support "deeply and sincerly held religious beliefs" as a concept, as long as that concept doesn't screw up their own personal lives. But when their own personal rights and powers are put in jeopardy, these religious defenders will side with the atheists, if only for that moment, so as not to appear to be too reprehensible in their insane defense of the nature of religion as a "powerful force in humanity", filled with "other ways of knowing".

Religious liberals:

They aid and abet this kind of snakebite insanity. They openly object and protest against the concept of religious beliefs could be called any form of insanity. "Oh no", these religious people on DU exclaim, they say any "ardent" or "strident" or "militant" atheists who point out this type of self-destructive insanity amongst religious believers, those atheists are worthy of scorn simply because no person should be seen as looking down upon or acting superior to "those with sincerely held religious beliefs", no matter how nutty and self-destrucive those "sincerely held religious beliefs" may be. But would these religious liberals play with snakes? Only when they don't know that supporting someone they admire, (a Pope, a Cardinal, a Priest or Minister, or a religious scholar) is acting in a way that would bite these religious liberals in the head or the butt, if given half the chance.

Religious liberals on DU just have learned to dance with different snakes, IMO.

[onager]

11. Hey, you could discuss that in "their" DU group!

Christian Liberals & Progressive People of Faith.

The group could certainly use the traffic - it's had a blazing 7 posts in the past 30 days. (This group had 362 posts in the same time, according to the DU stats.)



Exactly as predicted when they built that little echo chamber. Predicted in this group, at least.

CL&PPF was set up as a safe haven for the Alleged Progressive Xians to escape all the nasty atheists infesting the Religion group.

But in the end - also exactly as predicted - the CL&PPF were mostly only interested in snarking at atheists and patting themselves on the back.

So now the safe haven they demanded lies abandoned. And they're all back in the Religion group, where they have a larger audience for displaying their Emperor's new clothes.

[Beachwood]

12. Never went there, and I would really feel as out-of-place as

I do when I make an obligatory appearance at a church wedding or funeral.

I don't do religion. Simple as that. After 10-15 years of churchly teachings, and another 5 years of trying to dance with "liberal christian" concepts, I realized those people were just innocently dancing with another kind of snake. Piggy-backing any "religion" on top of secular and humanist efforts in our world is just an effort to bring along the clueless into the new reality of an ever-changing world, a world filled with new discoveries and advancements.


"Liberal or progressive Christian" is, for me, a contradiction in terms.

[RussBLib]

13. Cody Coots will take his fathers place

I knew it! But it was an easy call. The stubborn ignorance runs deep in this family.

Son of dead snake-handling pastor will take his father's place in the pulpit

MIDDLESBORO — The son of a snake-handling pastor who died after being bitten by a rattlesnake during a church service Saturday night plans to take his father's place in the pulpit starting this weekend.

Cody Coots, 21, said he would become pastor of Full Gospel Tabernacle in Jesus Name, where his father had preached much of his adult life. His first service will be Saturday.

Snake handling and other signs of faith will continue in the church, Coots said Thursday.

"I'll carry it on," he said. "That's what he believed in. It's what he stood for."

snip

Jamie Coots was prominent among the close-knit circle of snake-handling Pentecostal churches in Appalachia, but he gained wider notice last year when he appeared on a National Geographic Television program called Snake Salvation, which profiled him and snake handlers' beliefs.

"What he taught me and what the word of God says, I'll stand on the signs and the baptism and everything until either I die or they kick me out of church," Cody Coots said. "Because if I didn't, he'd be disappointed."

Read more here: http://www.kentucky.com/2014/02/20/3100178/son-of-dead-snake-handling-pastor.html#storylink=cpy