Christian Subversion And Missionary Activities - 6

[Husky]

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Newer stuff.



1. abcnews.go.com/US/serpent-handling-west-virginia-pastor-dies-snake-bite/story?id=16459455

U.S. 'Serpent-Handling' West Virginia Pastor Dies From Snake Bite

May 30, 2012

By ARLETTE SAENZ

Arlette Saenz More from Arlette »via World News



Photo caption: Pastor Mack Wolford, a member of the Pentecostal "Signs Following" tradition, handles a rattlesnake during a service at the Church of the Lord Jesus in Jolo, W.V., in this Sept. 2, 2011, photo. Lauren Pond for the Washington Post via Getty Images



A "serpent-handling" West Virginia pastor died after his rattlesnake bit him during a church ritual, just as the man had apparently watched a snake kill his father years before.



Pentecostal pastor Mark Wolford, 44, hosted an outdoor service at the Panther Wildlife Management Area in West Virginia Sunday, which he touted on his Facebook page prior to the event.



"I am looking for a great time this Sunday," Wolford wrote May 22, according to the Washington Post. "It is going to be a homecoming like the old days. Good 'ole raised in the holler or mountain ridge running, Holy Ghost-filled speaking-in-tongues sign believers."



Robin Vanover, Wolford's sister, told the Washington Post that 30 minutes into the outdoor service, Wolford passed around a poisonous timber rattlesnake, which eventually bit him.



"He laid it on the ground," Vanover said in the interview, "and he sat down next to the snake, and it bit him on the thigh."



Vanover said Wolford was then transported to a family member's home in Bluefield about 80 miles away to recover. But as the situation worsened, he was taken to a hospital where he later died.



Jim Shires, owner of the Cravens-Shires Funeral Home in Bluefield, told ABC News that Wolford died Monday. Wolford's church, the Apostolic House of the Lord Jesus in Matoaka, will host a viewing Friday and a funeral service Saturday morning. Wolford will be buried at the Hicks Family Plot in Phelps, Ky.



Officials at the Panther Wildlife Management Area had been unaware of Sunday's event until they were notified by callers after the service.



"We did not know that this event was happening, and if we had known about it or if we had been asked for permission, permission would not have been granted," Hoy Murphy, public information officer for the West Virginia Division of Natural Resources, told ABC News.



Hoy said West Virginia state park rules prohibit animals other than dogs and cats on the property.



While snake-handling is legal in West Virginia, other Appalachian states, including Kentucky and Tennessee, have banned the practice in public spaces.



Snake-handlers point to scripture as evidence that God calls them to engage in such a practice to show their faith in him. 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."



Wolford told the Washington Post magazine in 2011 that he is carrying on the tradition of his ancestors by engaging in snake handling.



"Anybody can do it that believes it," Wolford said. "Jesus said, 'These signs shall follow them which believe.' This is a sign to show people that God has the power."



Wolford said watched his own father die at the age of 39 after a rattlesnake bit him during a similar service.



"He lived 101/2 hours," Wolford told the Washington Post Magazine. "When he got bit, he said he wanted to die in the church. Three hours after he was bitten, his kidneys shut down. After a while, your heart stops. I hated to see him go, but he died for what he believed in.



"I know it's real; it is the power of God," Wolford told the Washington Post Magazine last year. "If I didn't do it, if I'd never gotten back involved, it'd be the same as denying the power and saying it was not real."

Well, obviously it wasn't real and the snake just proved it.

Awesome snake. Just went and scientifically demonstrated that the "christogawd" doesn't exist. (For the verbose version of the snake's demonstration, please read JesusNeverExisted.com)





2. www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-26224452

17 February 2014 Last updated at 12:51



Snake Salvation pastor dies from snake bite

Jamie Coots refused to accept treatment following the rattlesnake bite



A snake-handling pastor who appeared on US TV show Snake Salvation has died after being bitten by a rattlesnake.



Jamie Coots was holding the snake at his church in Middlesboro, Kentucky, when he was bitten on the hand, according to fellow preacher Cody Winn.



The Middlesboro Police Department said Coots refused to have medical treatment for the bite.



Coots said last year that he needed the snakes for religious reasons, citing a Bible passage in Mark's gospel.



The handlers' religious conviction is based on a passage in Mark's gospel which reads: "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."



National Geographic said in a statement that it was struck by Coots' "devout religious convictions despite the health and legal peril he often faced".



Timber rattlesnakes and copperheads are freely handled at such services



A police statement said that when an ambulance arrived at the Full Gospel Tabernacle in Jesus Name church on Saturday evening, staff were told Coots had gone home.



Coots was contacted at his house but refused to have any treatment. Emergency workers returned later in the evening, by which time Coots had died.



Mr Winn said that after the bite in church, Coots dropped the snake but then picked it up again.



"He had one of the rattlers in his hand," he told a local news station. "It just turned its head and bit him in the back of the hand... within a second."



Coots' son, also named Cody, said his father had been bitten eight times before but had never had such a severe reaction. He said the family thought he would recover as he had on previous occasions.



"We're going to go home, he's going to lay on the couch. He's going to hurt. He's going to pray for a while and he's going to get better," Cody Coots said.



"That's what happened every other time, except this time was just so quick and it was crazy."



Last year Jamie Coots was caught transporting three rattlesnakes and two copperheads through Knoxville, Tennessee. The snakes were confiscated.



Coots subsequently pleaded guilty to illegal wildlife possession and was given one year of unsupervised probation.



In 1995 28-year-old Melinda Brown, of Parrottsville, Tennessee, died after being bitten by a timber rattlesnake at Coots' church.

Snakes: +1 yet again

Christomorons: down by 1 again.



Woohoo the Home Team wins! (Rattlesnakes being native American, and the christomorons being invaders.)



Didn't know about this showdown, else I'd have bet on the snake for sure and been raking in the money now.

Poor snake, terrorised by christian church-goers "handling" it. Hope the slithery heathen is not sent to the electric chair for this. It was obviously self-defence. Needs clemency. Astounding restraint the snake has shown in biting only one of them dead after all this time of constant christo-abuse.



It's worrying if India's growing number of pentacostals or was it 7th day adventists - forgot which of these modern looney christocults is into the "speaking in tongues" verbal diarrhoea that's mentioned in news item #1 - are going to similarly start illegally catching and christo-terrorising poor Hindoo snakes next, as part of the same insane "christian culture". Christians are horrors with snakes: they consider snakes the devil, so one knows how the cretins will treat these poor animals. (The only upshot to this that I can think of would be that an increasing number of looney Indian christoconverts would get bitten - Go Cobra! - and never be heard from again. I don't think snakes would shed any tears over this. And who can blame them really?)