Such an interesting article. I’m coming at this from my own perspective which seems a bit less forgiving of religious fanaticism than yours.
For any church, for any religion, the outsiders are irrelevant. Unless we’re directly affected, their methods of worship are their business, not ours. If we don’t understand their rituals, they can live with that.
I was tempted to cut off you quote right before the sentence pertaining to rituals because it would be easier to illustrate my point. And also, its super early in the morning and believe it or not I’m waiting for my first cup of coffee to drip itself into the pot.
I’m familiar with the snake handling Pentecostals. My first husband was a herpetologist who worked in zoos and because of his capacity as someone who developed a snake bite protocol and who managed the anti-venom data base for the United States I’ve read a bit about them.
I’m also not religious. And I’m from the South which doesn’t have everything to do with witnessing bizarre offshoots of mainstream religions but does sometimes mean that I get to see how narrow minded some religious folks can be. So I’m not sure if outsiders are actually irrelevant…in fact I think that for some religions outsiders are their raison d’etre. For some of these folks having a good group of “outsiders” to bash gives them focus. Affords them community. Without a healthy smattering of hate what exactly do some of these groups really have?
People are often willing to die for things that others don’t understand. Fighting is wars is something that immediately comes to mind. As a society it is pretty mainstream to get the “importance” for that but for some peace niks it doesn’t make sense at all. For some parents it doesn’t make any sense either.
People that work at abortion clinics and doctors who provide abortion care are another example but this is a little bit more diametrically opposed to your questions about snake handling. The abortion folks are hoping NOT to die but are willing to take it on for the sake of others but maybe that is exactly the same as what the snake handlers and soldiers are doing as well.
If you really want to be amazed and don’t mind watching someone willingly submit to a snake bite (without faith in a god having anything to do with it) watch this youtube video.
My late husband used to work with this guy. I’m positive he is sincere. He is also currently in federal prison for setting fire to a post office. Not a glowing example of pristine mental health which I feel sure he would admit himself…which brings me back around to those who expect their “unique” perspective on the bible to be allowed to continue unhampered by others, even when they are torturing captive creatures created by…well… their creator…
Yeah, there is a reason I’m not religious.
In Utah the mainstream Mormon church doesn’t allow polygamy and yet there are Mormons who believe it is a mandate from above. Some of them have taken it too far, have gotten crazy and involved children in their cultish behavior.
In the United States a huge group of people (ostensibly an entire voting block) have decided that abortion is a crime. Some people in this group even mention punishing women for having abortions.
It’s a super long transcript but so “awesome” I just had to include it here.
To wrap this up (man I need some coffee) this huge group of people I’ve been discussing seem a lot more like the snake handling Pentecostals and Polygamists than anyone could possibly imagine.
I have no answers. Just early morning observations…
anyhow, Ramona, 50 claps for you. Thanks for keeping Medium interesting.
Yay!
