From http://www.breitbart.com/news/2006/11/08/D8L8N2IG0.html. I suppose she’d be a good candidate for the Darwin Award if she hadn’t already passed childbearing age. Yeah, I know I sound crass, but I have a hard time feeling sympathy for people who died due to their own stupidity. Should I go in similar fashion, laugh at me, please!
A woman who was bitten by a snake at a church that neighbors say practices serpent handling died of her wounds hours later, a newspaper reported.
Linda Long, 48, was bitten Sunday at East London Holiness Church, where neighbors said the reptiles are handled as part of religious services, The Lexington Herald-Leader reported Tuesday.
Long died at University of Kentucky Medical Center about four hours after being bitten, authorities told the newspaper.
“She said she was bitten by a snake at her church,” said Lt. Ed Sizemore of the Laurel County Sheriff’s Office.
Handling reptiles as part of religious services is illegal in Kentucky. Snake handling is a misdemeanor and punishable by a $50 to $100 fine.
Police said they had not received any reports of snake handling at the church.
Snake handling is based on a passage in the Bible that says a sign of a true believer is the power to “take up serpents” without being harmed.
Church officials could not be reached for comment.
Sweet memories
When I was a missionary for the Mormon church, I had the unique priviledge of snake-handling. I had a friend get bitten by a mamushi. In some twisted sort of illogical way (hey, I was only 20!) I thought that the Boy Scout thing to do was to bring it (alive!) to the hospital for identification. So I actually picked the thing up with my hands (thumb behind the head, all proper-like.) I put it in a sake bottle that we got from a nearby club and took it to the hospital. The doctor freaked out because I didn’t have the top on the bottle when I showed it too him–hilarious in retrospect. I showed it to a lot of regular folk, who thought it was great. My friend came through, but he was pretty sick for a bit–probably made sicker by what I perceived as Japanese quackery.
I tried to make mamushi-zake (the link is actually about aphrodisiacs, but it talks about how to make mamushi-zake-skip down a to the middle) for the victim, but I didn’t have the benefit of the link I just provided you, so I ended up just drowning the snake instead. Whoops. I buried it for a few months then dug it up to make a bone necklace, but that didn’t work either. So, no momento.
I’m apalled that I ever thought to pick the stupid thing up. Makes me very nervous about my own kids.
Out Loud Laughter
Not only did you pick it up, but you kept it and drowned it and tried to distract alcohol from it and then buried it and dug it up. That’s serious devotion to one snake.
I didn’t think Mormons were allowed to drink? Especially on their mission?
Somewhere In Here
Is a movie script waiting to get out. Or at least a good scene in one…
My $.02 Weed
Mormon Doctrine
What can I say Sam? Once I had survived, I now had a great story to tell about cheating death. Can you blame me for being so attached?
Mormon scriptures suggest (but don’t command) that the consumption of hard liquor be avoided, while recommending beer and small beer.
Modern Mormons interpret that to mean God forbids any alcohol whatsoever, unless it’s in cough syrup.
But there aren’t any rules about making drinks. Thus the best bartender for a private party is a Mormon one–they won’t sneak anything on the side.
Ah
Ah, the perils of religious literalism.
One can almost imagine God sitting in the heavens shouting, “No! No, I didn’t mean that literally, you idiot! ‘Taking up serpents’ is a friggin’ metaphor!!!”
— Ben
Whoa!!!!
You mean God didn’t REALLY create the cosmos in 6 days and rest on the 7th?
At least that’s the theory they teach me in school now…
My $.02 Weed
No, he totally did.
He was under a deadline because he had an early tee-time on Sunday.
What gets me is *selected* literalism. They think that God really wants them to handle dangerous snakes, but I’ll bet they eat bacon. So what, the kosher laws don’t count, but everything else is the Word of God?
— Ben
Mmm…
Mmm Bacon… I like Bacon… (Pie just didn’t really seem to fit – lol)