(February 16, 2014 at 6:43 pm)Ryantology (╯°◊°)╯︵ ══╬ Wrote: lulz

Quote:A Kentucky pastor who starred in a reality show about snake-handling in church has died -- of a snakebite.

Jamie Coots died Saturday evening after refusing to be treated, Middleborough police said.

On "Snake Salvation," the ardent Pentecostal believer said that he believed that a passage in the Bible suggests poisonous snakebites will not harm believers as long as they are anointed by God. The practice is illegal in most states, but still goes on, primarily in the rural South.

And before any pedants chime in, yes, I know it's not technically ironic.

(February 17, 2014 at 12:27 am)popeyespappy Wrote: This is the second snake bite death at Full Gospel Tabernacle in Jesus Name church that I am aware of. Melinda Brown the wife of another snake handling preacher Punkin Brown received a fatal bite during a service at this church in 1995. Punkin died 3 years later after being bitten at the Rock House Holiness Church near Scottsboro, Alabama. Freedom of religion be damned. These people need to be locked in rubber room for their own good. Hopefully before they breed. Punkin and Melinda had 5 under age children when he died. Last I heard the maternal grandparents were fighting to keep the kids out of the custody of the paternal grandparents who run another snake charming church the Holiness Church of God in Jesus Name in South Carolina.

(February 17, 2014 at 2:07 am)Esquilax Wrote: You would think, given that the premise here is that those who die of snakebites are not anointed and chosen by god, that this death would show that the preachers at this specific church are not speaking for god, and people would stop listening.

The fact that the place still exists after the first one shows something very clearly: a lot of christians only believe in god up to the point where it might require they change something.

(February 17, 2014 at 2:15 am)Ryantology (╯°◊°)╯︵ ══╬ Wrote: I guess they think that the church is solid and the preacher wasn't.

Which is fine, less chance of them polluting the gene pool.

Quote:You would think, given that the premise here is that those who die of snakebites are not anointed and chosen by god, that this death would show that the preachers at this specific church are not speaking for god, and people would stop listening.

Quote:Mark 16 is the final chapter of the Gospel of Mark in the New Testament of the Christian Bible. It begins with the discovery of the empty tomb by Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James, and Salome. There they encounter a man dressed in white who announces the Resurrection of Jesus.

Verse 8 ends with the women fleeing from the empty tomb, and saying "nothing to anyone, because they were afraid." Many scholars take 16:8 as the original ending and believe the longer ending (16:9-20) was written later by someone else as a summary of Jesus' resurrection appearances and several miracles performed by Christians. In this 12-verse passage, the author refers to Jesus' appearances to Mary Magdalene, two disciples, and then the Eleven (the Twelve Apostles minus Judas). The text concludes with the Great Commission, declaring that believers that have been baptized will be saved while nonbelievers will be condemned, and pictures Jesus taken to Heaven and sitting at the Right Hand of God.[1]

Most scholars, following the approach of the textual critic Bruce Metzger, hold the view that verses 9-20 were not part of the original text.[1] Textual critics have identified two distinct endings—the "Longer Ending" (vv. 9-20) and the "Shorter Ending," which appear together in six Greek manuscripts, and in dozens of Ethiopic copies. The "Shorter Ending," with slight variations, runs as follows: "But they reported briefly to Peter and those with him all that they had been told. And after this, Jesus himself sent out by means of them, from east to west, the sacred and imperishable proclamation of eternal salvation."

(February 17, 2014 at 2:32 am)Minimalist Wrote: The bullshit about playing with snakes is in the addendum which, given the general level of xtian belief, could have been written by Bozo the Clown.