Reality show snake-handling preacher dies -- of snakebite

[Woollyhats]

In the defence of his religion, there's a whole story in the Bible where Jesus was fasting in the desert and the devil tempted him, basically saying: "Throw yourself from a cliff and have your daddy desperately send angels to save you because yolo!" and Jesus was like: "Thou shall not tempt my father with stupid ass tests and challenges". I think the pastor probably missed that.

[MisterTinkles]

As ignorant and backwards as these type of people are, and as much as I despise religions of all kinds, there are some good points these people have.

I've seen several documentaries on this religion, and aside from the freak show status they have and the ongoing idiocy of some of it, there are a few good points.

As for his death................as with anyone who does this type of thing, it all gets down to the law of averages. (ie: Steve Irwin)

[Lalo]

I'm sorry...I may be rude, but I just find the title of this article kinda hilarious.

[Pix]

The worst one I heard was where one of their pastors murdered his wife by riling up the snakes before throwing his wife in. He even confessed to it, IIRC, but the church still supported him saying if his wife had faith in God then she would've lived and therefore was her own fault (at least I don't recall them claiming religious persecution for prosecuting the pastor).

They even cited OTHER murder attempts that didn't result in death, but it should be known that snakebites, at least in the US, are only rarely lethal. Humans and animals, even when untreated for bites by cottonmouths and copperheads, almost always survived (though they'd get very sick and miserable, and death was a possibility). Snakes that recently fed were supposed to have less venom (as they used it) and I'm sure snakes kept by handlers are kept well fed (and thus not as deadly). And most snakes in the US would rather get away from humans than attack them, I expect the snakes kept by handlers have learned to see humans as annoyances rather than threats, and thus even less likely to bite. So it's not surprising to me that some murder attempts by snake handlers have failed to killed the intended victim. God and faith has nothing to do with it. And I also don't get why anyone would justify the faith of their religion by bragging about failed murder attempts.