God did not help that particular pastor

Wolford was 15 when he saw his father die at age 39 of a rattlesnake bite in almost exactly the same circumstances.

Well, there goes the Gospel of Mark. That must have been a demoniac snake.

He musta just not believed hard enough.

This is going to be like the weather and evangelists: if really bad weather happens to someone they don't like, they say it's God's judgment on their sins. If it happens to _them_, well, eh, it's just the weather.

Stupid is as stupid does.

Best Regards Tom.

I've been trying to think of a way to make money with that approach. I haven't come up with anything yet that wouldn't land me in prison for at least three years.

Unless, of course, I was an executive in a large investment bank. See the parallel? Where the evangelist says "God's will," think "private profit." Where he says it's just the weather, think "socialized risk."

You would think the pastor would know the snake never read the Gospel of Mark.

Best Regards Tom.

Maybe their god was teaching the pastors followers not to play with snakes? Art

Was it really a pastor or one of those atheists I've been trying to get to prove they can do it too?

I'm thinking it's in the book of Joshua, God's people are going through victory after victory in battle because God is giving them the victory. God tells them not to take any of the treasures of the land but one person secretly takes a treasure and hides it in their tent. Their next battle is a small one so they just send out a relatively small group, but the "insignificant" enemy sends them running with their tail tucked between their legs. Gods people were successful until the moment they had a small secret sin in their life. What are the chances that a people that handle serpents go their entire life without having a secret sin in their heart? But they take the serpent handling for granted because they have done it for years, that little bit of worldly sin isn't going to matter. I would guess there are more people with a secret sin that get away with it than there are those who get snake bit from it, a pastor is held to a higher standard, God's not going to let him get away with things that the congregation might get away with.

Or maybe the people that handle the snakes are just luck of the draw to not be bitten, if the snake doesn't feel threatened, or maybe the deafening music? But what about the strychnine poison they drink? It doesn't get tamed by music, how do they survive that? So any atheists that want to test to see if there is a God, skip the snakes and go straight for the poison, if there is no god then an atheist can drink it too, maybe it's kool aid.

RogerN

It was a real pastor.

As far as I know, no person can be sinless, anyway.

If one needs to be completely sinless to handle those snakes, then, it follows, that nobody should handle snakes, since no one is free of sins.

Doubtfully atheists would be as stupid as to drink strychnine.

If they really drink stychnine and do not engage in sleights of hand, I would guess that they drink less than the deadly dose.

Boy, talk about the Darwin award! I think this one must be the winner this year.

Jon

Roger should drink some and see...

--if he's put out of our misery like what happened to the snake handler then it's God's will...

It's like dirt, you can get dirty and clean off, that's not a problem. The problem is when someone gets dirty and hides the dirt instead of cleaning.

They appear to not be in it to deceive, the snake bites are evidently real enough.

But notice how people will focus on the one deadly bite in ~44 years versus all the years of miracles.

RogerN

"Miracles"? It's those lazy, good-fer-nuthin', moonshine-swillin' West Virginia hillbilly snakes.

They're too drunk or sleepy to bite. This guy must have woke the snake up by mistake.

That is a painfully stupid comment and I'm not surprised that you refuse to admit the obvious: that the guy was a lifelong idiot believer and his survival of previous bites was never a miracle but the result of dumb luck which finally ran out.