f13.net

So at first I thought this story might be an April Fool's Joke, but the date is Mar. 24th.

Romanian Families are all kin to Van Helsing (http://www.montereyherald.com/mld/montereyherald/8267146.htm)

If a relative dies and another of the family gets ill, time to do some vampire slaying. YEEE-HAAAA!

I'm putting the bit about the sewing needle in my will.

Hard to believe there are people that backwards in Europe still. I could see it from some tiny island, but Europe? Jeebus.

Why don't they just bury everyone with the needle and be done with it?

I think this would make a really interesting documentary though.  Learn more about the views of their vampires, where the traditions came from, how the police view them and carry on the investigation, maybe even go along on a 'vampire hunt'.

Romania, hell there are people in The good old USA that are that backward.  Some of them even believe that THEY are vampires.

...and that Vampires work at Domino's

Shit, man, that's pretty cool.
When I'm dead, I think I'm going to insert a proviso into the will demanding such treatment before anyone gets my life insurance.

Good point. I guess if they are hardcore enough to burn my heart and drink a aortic ash cocktail, they probably deserve the 15 cents I'll leave them.

Do you think that stupid myth would still exist down there, if they'd be actually smart enough to think of that idea on their own?

The Romanian state police is largely comprised of absolute scum; somewhere between 16 and 60% of Ceacescu's old Securitate eke out a living with the current regime's police. If killing a few vampires gets them hot under the collar, so much the better.

The United States has places that are fairly backward, too. They're commonly referred to as "The South."

Fair point. After all, these idiots are all over the Appalachian mountains-

(http://augustachronicle.com/images/headlines/062996/062996porter.jpg)

I was having a fun time thinking about people who believed in vampires, and then you had to go and bring in the snake people and make me depressed about humanity again.  Poor snakes.

Here comes a good ole Southern boy anecdote.

My father tells me a story about my great-grandfather. Now, I am apparently (and if you see the picture, quite obviously) a dead ringer look alike for my great-grandfather. He was, later in life, a minister. This past weekend I saw his ordination papers; ordained as one of Mississippi's first Assembly of God ministers in 1931. After that, he spent years going around rural Mississippi, building churches deep in the backwoods. That's probably where I get my oratory/rant style, from the fire-and-brimstone like sermons I'm sure he used to give.

Well, one Sunday morning when my dad was a little child, my great grandfather takes the family (including his wife, my granddad and dad and any uncles that were alive at the time) to some backwoods or "corntry" church. I mean you drive down dirt roads to get to it. So my great grandfather is preaching away and notices these fellers walking out the back door. From all my dad could gather, my great grandfather gives a subtle signal to my great grandmother, who promptly begins ushering the kids and everyone else directly out the door. My great grandfather keeps on preaching ALL THE WAY OUT THE DOOR. Meanwhile, those two fellers who walked out the back have come back in bearing cages which seemed to rattle and hiss.

He may have been a preacher, but my great granddad was no fool.

Nice story, could have managed to be abit longer, the payoff would have been worth extra exposition.

:)

Ok, I'm going to need a brief explination on the snake thing.  Seems like I've heard of something in the south involving religion and snakes, but I can't remember what the hell for.  Will help put the story in better light.

basically kooks who believe the serpent is a symbol of evil and if you are pure and a man of god they will not harm you, and even if they bite you will not be harmed by the poison.  So they handle snakes to re-affirm their faith.  Beyond just handling, they do all sorts of fucking idiotic things with fully venomed deadly snakes.  There are similar belief systems around the world, not TOO far off the snake charming bit of east indians.

I am probably off on the specifics.  Maybe Haemish can provide more insight.

Someone should tell them about this guy:

World-Record Snake Handler Dies of Lethal Bite (http://washingtontimes.com/upi-breaking/20040322-113321-9920r.htm)

Bruce

Like that would do any good, the greatest thing about religion is you can make up any excuse for any action you want.

Loose all your money playing cards?  Blame the sin in your heart.

Kill several 10's of thousands of people who believe the same religion you do?  Gods loves them and they get to go immediately to heaven so it was a 'good thing'.

Snake handling religius cook gets bit by one of his snakes and dies?  He wasn't pure enough.

Etc, etc...

Or god was calling him home...

Dumb fucks.

Snake-handling as I understand it is "confronting the symbol of ultimate evil" i.e. Satan in the form of a serpent and surviving the confrontation. This involves either grabbing snakes and playing around with them while singing hymns and looking like a dumbfuck, or sticking your hand in a box full of rattlesnakes that the preacher just shook up to get the snakes "right ornery." If you can put your hand in the box and not get bitten, you are clean/pure/sin-free/lucky as David Fucking Copperfield.

You'd think that if the snake is Satan, or a close approximation thereof, that cavorting around with them would mean that you were consorting with evil. But I guess logic has no place with these fucking nitwits.

All my snake-handling knowledge is second and third hand, mind you. Had I been in a church where these retards brought out the serpent soiree, this little Southern boy would have booked it like the devil himself was on my heels. I see a snake in the grass, I'm Jesse Motherfucking Owens, dig?

I wish that the American snake handlers would use mambas too- that would thin their ranks in a big fat hurry. Black mambas aren't nearly as cuddly as the water moccasins and rattlesnakes the hillbillies handle (they are widely considered the most aggressive venomous snake), plus mamba poison is several times more lethal than rattlesnake or water moccasin or copperhead.

Everything I know about snakes in American culture I learned from Harry Crews (http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0684842483/).

Actually it really doesnt have anything to do with evil per sey.  Sepent handlers are fundamentalists, and to the dedicated believers they are just carrying out the words of Jesus in St. Mark 16:17-18:

"And these signs shall follow them that believe: in my name they shall 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."

Its basicly just a reaffirmation of faith. A dumb fucking affermation but one none the less. Sometimes I am embarrased to come from the south....

Having lived half my life in the north and consulted up there another decade I can safely say I found far more intolerance and outright racism there then in the South.  Boston and Detroit particularly were real eye-openers for me.

Can't they just "drink any deadly thing" and leave the poor snakes alone?

If they survive that, they are free to try everything else...

The stupid ones probably already tried that.  The smart ones watched all the stupid ones die off and decided to go with snakes.

HEMLOCK FOR JESUS!

More fun with snake handling- link (http://www.wftv.com/news/3004502/detail.html).

As my brother put it- he probably didn't believe in natural selection. Oh, the irony!

Funny, I didn't know that unbelievable stupidity was a belief system now.

And I always thought it was the foundation of most belief systems.

Unfortunately, it isn't a crime either.

"Belief systems" as most people would understand the phrase means to accept something as truth without sufficient evidence, or indeed even when faced with contraditory evidence.  This is true whether the system is religious in nature or not.

What's ironic about this is that most religious systems DO have a foundation in truth - more so than those who would call them stupid.  Out of all the possible belief systems a culture could adopt, they adopt the one they have because of many reasons - often good ones, at least at the time.  For example, many people in India praise cows above almost all else - some to the point of worship.  Some would call them stupid, but they would also be the less intelligent of the two.  Their praise of cows is a life-saving and culture-saving stance.  Their economy and society would fall to pieces without it.  For them, it would be far worse than the Great Depression for Americans.

No, sticking your hand into a box of poisonous snakes doesn't offer a lot of direct rewards, nor does ripping the heart out of your dead family member and making a nice tea out of it.  They do these things for real reasons, however.  What do people do instead of trying to understand these reasons (or just leaving them to do their own thing)?  Laugh at them for acting in a way contrary to one's own belief system.  The pot is calling who what again?

And since the people I'm mostly speaking to are too slow to get the point of what I'm saying, I'll reduce it a bit to be intelligible:

Shut the fuck up you stupid assmastic discriminatory netwaste.

And to everyone else:  have a nice day.

Actually, we laugh at them for doing something that is so goddamn backwards, and so against all scientific evidence of the past, oh six or so centuries, is so illogical and retarded, so anachronistic that people in the Dark Ages would have said, "Well, that's rather silly."

All in the name of a belief system.

I believe in God. I believe my God has a sense of humor. I do not, however, believe that an entity whose capacities exceed that of every human on earth would want said humans to get themselves killed in his name by doing something so patently goddamn stupid. I believe there are certain tests, we'll call them the Darwin Competency Tests, or DCT. One of the first questions is:

1) Someone tells you the only way to win the favor of an invisible, mythical entity is by sticking an appendage in a box full of deadly, pissed off animals and then surviving said trial. Do you:

    A)Do so without ever questioning the logic of said act
    B)Do so only after a careful, thoughtful examination of the Scripture
    C)Tell said person to go fuck themselves

If you answer either A or B, you fail the test and since each question involves a death by stupid, it tends to weed out the worst lot of people. In my God's heaven, the completely stupid are sent to Hell for being so stupid, just so they don't fuck up Heaven for the people who aren't fucking dumb enough to stick their hand in a box full of rattlers.

Pot? Kettle? I'm the one without snake venom coursing through my veins.

Haemish is clearly not one with Brother Snake.

Sincerely,

(http://www.badmovies.org/movies/billyjack/billyjack8.jpg)

Again, it's easy to mock people who have had less opportunity than you, and who grew up in a different situation from you.  Their decisions are perfectly logical and rational to them, because they start out with different suppositions from you.  They start out without all the right info, so are bound to come out with some wrong conclusions.

The irony in it is that people who point and laugh are making the same mistake they are - none of us know everything, despite the smugness that suggests we do.  So here you are, with incomplete info, making fun of someone else because they have incomplete info.  Like one retard pointing at another and calling him stupid and backwards.  Cripple fight!  Who gives a damn if you've got more snippets than he does?  The other guy has some you don't.  Respect it, learn from it, or be as supid as you were going into the fray.

These aren't people who live in Papua New Guinea, and are amazed by technology such as fire. They live in one of the most industrialized countries on the planet. It isn't like they can't go 50 miles and find a fucking Starbucks or Walmart. Their ignorance is willful, for the most part.

It is like saying the Amish don't use cars and electricity (or whatever the hell they reject) out of ignorance. They CHOOSE to live that way.

To a large extent, statements like this are factually wrong.  It is one made out of ignorance - ignorance of how decision making is handled.  Why are Amish living without technical conveniences?  Because they grew up being told that they shouldn't, and that what their parents tell them is right.  That view is reinforced by the understanding that they live fairly happily - in fact, studies show that the Amish are one of the happiest cultures in the world.  

And so it is with most cultures, including those in Romania, or in the mountains of the US.  They are told to think a certain way, and their life experience reinforces that way of thinking.  Yes, they choose to live that way, but it's based on an understanding of what they've learned.  It isn't willful ignorance, it's a logical conclusion.

That doesn't mean that a logical conclusion is a correct conclusion.  An argument can be completely, 100% logically sound - and still incorrect (note I'm not saying that any of these cultures discussed *are* being perfectly logical, but just assume here that they were).  Why?  Because logic is only as good as the input.  You can't toss in bad numbers into a computer and expect a right result (there's a quote on that, and I can't find it).  Alternately, you can't toss in half the numbers and expect a right result - and that's all they've got to work with.  Or you, for that matter.

But, ah, the joys of Humanity.  You and they can sit on opposite sides of the fence, spouting off how ignorant each other is, and both wondering why there's so much hate in the world.

Just to reinforce what I'm saying, "there but for the grace of God, go I."

See, I was born and lived in backwoods ass Mississippi. I went to churches that might have at one time practiced snake handling. Had my parents not been as progressive as they were (and they weren't that progressive), I could have been a snake handler too. I'm not so far removed from the idiots that stick their hand in a box full of rattlers. I just happen to have a mind that can and will review such activities before I do them, instead of going on blind faith.

These people are Americans, whose backgrounds differ so slightly from my own that to an "outsider" they might appear identical. I mock them because I know backwoods, 2-toothed rednecks like this who are quite happy to live in willful ignorance. In this day and age, there is no excuse of "we weren't exposed to that" in America. Past a certain age, exposure to anything you want is just a decision away. Choosing not to experience or at least think critically and logically about the things around you, especially a belief system, is asking to drink the red cool-aid.

There are many cultures which have learned, for good reasons, that questioning and going against what is culturally acceptable is a bad thing - namely because testing whether a new social structure works is socially expensive.  America is large enough to absorb pockets of difference, and to try out which ones work and don't.  Societies of hundreds can't afford to experiment a whole lot with how their society runs.  

You say that exposure to anything you want is easy; but that's irrelevant.  I can fire back the same to you, but it doesn't change your attitude.  You can expose yourself to sociology, a very large slice of which is devoted to trying to figure out why social structures behave the way they do.  I promise you, their conclusion isn't because they're "stupid".

You likely won't do it though, because that requires both work and a change of your current mindset, two things that people are typically loathe to do.  Instead, you would rather sit there with a smug, enlightened American attitude, feeling very well of yourself in comparison to others (hereby denoted as "stupid people").  You accept your mental superiority over them with the same certainty as the snake handlers stick their hand into the box - because it's what you learn from your culture.  You, just like they, have the capability to review your activities.  But neither of you do.  Fortunately, your red cool-aid is merely the same willful ignorance you accuse others of partaking, and not lethal, but the difference does nothing to improve your mental state.

(http://archive.gamespy.com/devcorner/january01/carlson/pong.gif)

So... maybe I'm missing something here.

Is it alright for me to point at and make fun of 'the stupid people' if I first pause and reflect that they're just culturally different and probably happy in their (my perceived) ignorance AND I conceed that I'm not perfect either?  'Cos I don't want to go to hell or nuthin'

WTF does red cool aid have to do with this?  And you are all but calling Haemish a "stupid person" here making you the exact kind of person you are raging against.

You aren't calling him stupid in words, but to paraphrase Emmerson, the incessant pounding of who you are drones out what you say.

Saying these people are who they are because of their upbringing invalidates those who choose to live a different life.  It also ignores those who start in a different life and then turn to things like an amish lifestyle or snake handling later in life.  Humans are not a collection of our past events and input.  We are a lot more complex than that.  But go ahead and overly simplify it if it makes you happier that you can be 'right'.

Stupid is making a bad decision based on available info.  US soldiers willingly die in battle (or more appropriately, willingly risk their life), but there aren't many who are going to call them stupid.  We usually call them heros.  The soldier and the snake handler both took risks - both died.  How you describe them is part of your cultural attitude, part of your understanding.  For a soldier, he generally risks his life for his country because he believes his country worth keeping around.  The snake handler generally desires to express his faith, which he views as socially valuable and also worth keeping around.  Neither views their actions, or their beliefs, as pointless, worthless, or useless.  Both are [possibly] making intelligent decisions.

Calling people stupid for being different, or operating outside your understanding, is itself stupid - it is in effect calling people rationally inconsistant while being inconsistant within your own logic.  Again; pot, kettle.  It's the same type of thing that leads to racism, sexism, and so forth.  Stupid would be sticking your hand in the snake box without believing that the service is "real" - that is, that snakes tend to bite people that piss them off, and you're about to do something to piss them off, and there is no religious component to it. Stupid would be these zealots cursing the name of God.

How does any of that refute my point? It isn't like the Amish live behind 1000 foot walls and have no exposure to the outside world. They CHOOSE not to explore the outside world (due to the teachings of their parents and others). That means they remain willfully ignorant.



By doing it my way, I get to live. Living > cultural sensitivity.

Because history is hard. (http://www.owlnet.rice.edu/~reli291/Jonestown/Jonestown.html)



Because reading is hard (http://www.f13.net/forums/viewtopic.php?t=190&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=0#4959).



We are very much a product of our environment.  Until and unless the human brain is cracked open and examined cell for cell, like computer debug code, we'll never know for certain of course - but there are mountains upon mountains of research to back that statement.  We grow up to be who we are because of a (roughly 50/50) mix of our genes and what we are exposed to.  Yes, life, society, decision making, etc is a complex topic.  Hence the mountains and mountains bit.  It does, however, take into account people who change their lives - and more than that, why societies often change their direction, and so forth.  But again, instead of reading and learning, it's far easier for you to resort to a mix of ad hominum and straw man.

If you've ever seen an Amish drive down the road in their horse and buggies, or sell their goods to those outside their area, you'd know that they don't live behind 1000 foot walls or otherwise completely shut themselves off from society.  They're exposted to it, they see it, they talk to people living in it - and choose not to participate.  Few if any of them have participated actively in our society (namely the technological aspects of it), but the requirement to try something before accepting or rejecting it is a difficult one to institute.  Have you lived as an Amish?  

Your position seems to be either one of two; that you call them ignorant because you think your position is superior to theirs, or you call them ignorant because they refuse to partake of your culture.  If it is the former, then you may be mistaken.  It depends on your metric, but your metric is likely to be one that you prefer.  It is also one which is utterly arbitrary - they have their own metric, are happy with it, and can retort the same accusation of ignorance toward you.  If the latter, then you are again at fault because you do not partake of their culture, and equally ignorant as they.  The first puts you in a position of logical inconsistancy, and the latter is an empty, but hostile, statement.

I repeat, WTF does red cool aid have to do with this.  Nothing in your link says anything about cool aid.  I had never heard the story told in a way that involved cool aid.  In fact this is the first retelling I read that bothered to even call it red.  I have only read one or two short references about it before.  Oooh.  So color me stupid for missing your incorrect or generally not well known reference to a mass suicide.  Unknown enough to not even be mentioned in the many page link you provide, and completely unimportant to the story itself.  Whoopdee doo.

If you actually believe half the shit you are spewing, you should see how blatently stupid it is to call someone stupid because they called someone else stupid.  Sheesh.

Info available to snake handlers:

1) Rattlesnake bites are poisonous, often resulting in death.
2) Rattlesnakes imprisoned in a box for any length of time get mighty pissed off.
3) Mighty-pissed off rattlesnakes bite the first moving thing that crosses their path.

That's it. That's all you need. If the available info is as above, and you choose to stick your hand in anyway, I get to call you FUCKING STUPID.

Arrogant, yes. Elitist, yes. NOT BITTEN BY A GODDAMN RATTLESNAKE FOR RELIGION? Amen.

EDIT: I made the red cool-aid reference. I just assumed the cool-aid was red, since there were fewer flavors then. Mass suicide for religion is a mass expression of the stupid exhibited by individuals in snake-handling rituals.

Note to Roac... the Amish lifestyle does not willfully expose them to obvious dangers in the name of religion. I have no problem with someone choosing to live Amish, just with those who choose to live stupid.

It's a very popular misconception that the followers of Jim Jones killed themselves by drinking Kool Aid.  So much so that it's become a popular saying in America that you "Drank the Kool Aid" (as in bought in to something so greatly that you did something fucking ignorant without thinking it through).  It's not unreasonable for Haemish and Roac to say something about Kool Aid and expect that a majority of their audience will understand the point.  

To give you some context:  I attended a David Bowie concert two nights ago, and the opening band was The Polyphonic Spree (http://www.thepolyphonicspree.com/main.html), an overly happy cult like side project of the lead singer of Tripping Daisy.  My wife said "I keep expecting them to ask us to Drink the Kool Aid."

The followers of Jim Jones, however, did not drink cyanide laced Kool Aid to kill themselves.  They drank Flavor Aid (http://www.userland.com/whatIsKoolAid).  It turns out Jim Jones was too cheap to spring for full blown Kool Aid.

Jonestown peeps drank a poison often described as having been mixed with red cool aid.  I don't color you stupid for not knowing that little factoid, but you are a lousy troll.  I got it, Haemish got it, and neither of us were talking to you.  If you don't get it, or how it works as a symbol, fine.  Go sit at the kiddie table.

The two statements above are saying the same thing!

I only used the Amish as another example of a 'backward' group that exists in America. I have no beef with the Amish- they are free to live their lives as they see fit. If they engaged in dangerous practices like cavorting around with poisonous snakes or exhuming dead relatives to ingest various body organs, I might see it a different way.

My whole point is that these groups have to actively remain ignorant. They don't live on an isolated island with no contact with the scientific/educated world. They choose to live outside of normal society, and their belief systems are primitive when compared to common industrialized societies. Combining willful ignorance with a primitive belief system into a scenario that gets you killed is STUPID, and worthy of being mocked. It is not much different than the mouthbreathing fucktards who see stunts on Jackass and then go set themselves on fire.

Kool-Aid or whatever-the-fuck Jim Jones' bunch used is so passe.  It's all about the applesauce, pudding and vodka, y0!

Sincerely,

(http://a.abcnews.com/media/us/images/wolffiles_21_applewhite.jpg)

Everyone knows, when you're referencing Heaven's Gate you have to mention Nikes.

Jim Jones = Grape (not red) Kool Aid
Heaven's Gate = Nikes

Bizaare.  I knew about Jim Jones, but never heard the 'drink the kool aid' phrase referencing this.  Sheltered life or something.  Beats me.  Not really something my friends/family would reference I guess.  Ah well.

But now I am curious what they drank.  First it was red kool aid from Haemish, then red 'punch' in the linked site, then red flavor aid, then GRAPE kool aid.  Odd how people pick up on details and how they spread whether true or not.  Urban legend stuff there, nothing to do with the current discussion.

Although I find urban legends far more intersting than one person posting multiple times in a row about how people who call other people stupid because of their beliefs are stupid because of their beliefs about stupidity.

*sigh*

...which is exactly what I said.  The difference is that the snake handlers have a 4th item on the list - namely that faith in God will prevent the snakes from biting them.  Thereby, they are able to effectively cause a miracle, since by all rights the snakes should be biting the hell out of them, but generally they don't.  So, you're left with the following:

1) Rattlesnake bites are poisonous, often resulting in death.
2) Rattlesnakes imprisoned in a box for any length of time get mighty pissed off.
3) Mighty-pissed off rattlesnakes bite the first moving thing that crosses their path.
4) There is a religious group who stick a moving hand into a box full of poisonous rattlesnakes, who have been in there for a good length of time, and they generally do not bite the hand.

There's a logical inconsistancy here.  You're trapped by you're own damn argument - the few times those snakes do bite someone, it makes news.  They almost never do, as a consequence of there being a church at all.  By 1, 2, and 3, they should all be dead - but they aren't.  Something is missing; that religous group would add a 5th item to the list - that God prevents the snakes from biting them.  It creates logical consistancy (assuming you believe in God, as well as the passage of the Bible they are using).  It also does something that not many religions can claim - logical proof of a diety.  Since their faith is a foundation of their culture, this act is an excellent community-building act.

There could be other outs to this logical puzzle.  Maybe #3 is wrong - we have bad conceptions, and rattlesnakes don't like to bite.  Maybe they are trained to not bite.  Maybe the snakes are "drained" of poison by biting a dummy before the service (or milked for venom).  Maybe #1 is wrong, and rattlesnake poison isn't very toxic (though hardly fun).  But something has got to be going on, because no herpitologist in his right mind would DARE handle snakes the way these guys are.  Hell, they're far more careful than this bunch and still get hospitalized for bites.  Either way, the logical conundrum remains.



Sure it does; the Amish will decline modern medicine, for example.  It means they die for their beliefs.  But beyond that, it seems more that you are picking on radical (relative to you) religion, not on "teh stupid".  Stupid is an athiest who doesn't buckle up.  Stupid is the guy on the other thread who regularly binges, is overweight, [most likely] accepts modern science, is semi-aware of news, and neglects to change diet habbits.  I do not agree that doing something that appears to show concrete proof of the divine that could be somewhat risky, for the benefit of your fellow man, is stupid.  For that matter, if one holds there is no God, I see no reason to risk one's life for any principle whatsoever beyond those risks required to continue living (you're a soldier?  Stupid.  You fish for lobsters?  Stupid.).  If you hold that there is... well, that changes the game.  A lot.

My God, Roac's moronic viewpoint has generated as many posts on F13 as I've seen yet in a single business day.

Roac, could you please start about 15-20 threads a day? My belief system indicates that your oft inane and insipid point of view could very well save this forum. Thanks.

Bring the noise.
Cheers.............

I am not an atheist. I believe in God. Note, I said this above.

You are essentially arguing that all cultures are equally valid, despite many of these cultures willfully choosing to do stupid acts. They are not. Relativism as a philosophy sounds fine, but is shit in practice. Note Alluvian's explanation of your ciruclar logic.

You make it sound like I'm comparing snake handlers to furries. While I'm ok with their extinction on either end, one is a choice that is (relatively) harmless though hopelessly deviant and icky, while the other is plain stupid. Faith in God just happens to be their excuse for being willfully stupid. Incidentally, I think bungie jumpers are stupid as well for doing the exact same type of thing.



And don't forget the eunuchs!

(http://www.just4yucks.com/images/5x/59214.gif)

Now you need to put a snake in that hand.

He reminds me of an early Sir Bruce but without all of the self penis references.  

Haem, others.... bail. You'll have more fun and chance of reason from arguing with a mute parakeet.  You're playing racketball with yourself.

Can we move this to current events?  Not due to the topic, but the sheer stupidity of it.  It just seems to fit better there.  In the forum I like to ignore and pretend it does not exist.

Ingesting a little bit of ash (we're talking just a heart, reduced to ash, and divided between several people) is not dangerous.  Refusing modern medical treatment can be.  You are mistaken.



Per above, you clearly do not understand their culture, and have in turn remained ignorant of them, despite having vastly more resources at your disposal than most of these groups (Romanian peasants, Amish) have at theirs.



Ad hominum.  You offer nothing to suggest that culture of "common industrialized societies" are superior to any (and all) of these other groups.  If you mean primitive in the anthropological sense, your argument boils down to "they are wrong because they are not us".  If you mean it in the sense that it is crude, then you are in factual error, but logically also guilty of ad crumenam.  In lay speak, it means you're stupid.

And his conversion to the dark side (Sir Brucing) is complete.

I never said or argued that cultures were equally valid.  For that matter, cultural validity wasn't even brought up until now.  Nor do I agree with, or perscribe to, relativism.  What relativism does do for you, however, is help break out "I believe" type stances.  Everything *is* relative, unless you can offer a compelling reason why not to be.

You want to throw in what's practical ("in practice")?  Ok - but then you have to throw in, too, all the "why"s that a culture behaves the way it does.  See above with cows and India.  You can't pick one item out of a culture and call it stupid (and expect the statement to be rational) - context is everything.  It would be lethal for India to start eating their cows - it would literally turn that country into Somalia.  I can't imagine anything for that appalachain church being nearly so drastic, but you do have to measure the full effects of a culture before deciding whether something is worth it or not.  It may not be, but you've got to look a good bit beyond just "they're doing something dangerous!" - or else start pissing on military guys too.

Incorrect.

From a National Geographic article about snake handlers (http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2003/04/0407_030407_snakehandlers.html)-



That is the definition of stupid, if you ask me.



Why does my understanding of their culture have ANYTHING do do with it? My point remains- they have access to the same information I do (although I would guess that the Romanian peasants and Appalachian snake handlers who have Internet access is probably on the low side), yet they choose to ignore it. As a group, they actively seek to remain unenlightened.

Is this the thread where I start randomly talking about Africa, and the belief that having sex with virgins will prevent the spread of AIDS?

It would seem to fit.

While I really really really don't want to join this argument, I don't understand something in your argument.  Keep in mind that I'm not taking Roacs side or anyone's side for that matter, I think most everyone is stupid, snake religion people included; however, I just don't get this one thing.  

You say these people have to "actively remain ignorant" to maintain their belief structure, yet you provide proof that they are not ignorant of the fact that being bit by a snake is dangerous and potentially harmful.  While I don't believe what they are saying, I fail to see how they are actively remaining ignorant.  They don't handle snakes out of ignorance of the fact that snakes are dangerous (i.e. it's not like it was believed 100 years ago that snakes were good for you and they've refused to keep up with the times, they understand perfectly well that snakes are dangerous) they handle snakes because their interpretation of the Bible makes them feel that God desires for them to handle snakes.  They would be ignorant if they were ignoring proof that the Bible doesn't say that, but from what I've seen no one has been able to offer proof that their interpretation of the Bible is not valid (not mainstream maybe, but invalid no).  

Maybe I'm taking your position a little to literally?  I just don't understand how it's ignorant, per se.  I mean if you could provide quotes from the Bible that said "And when we were talking about handling snakes we weren't being fucking literal you asstard, don't fucking pick of a snake or Baby Jesus will cry" or maybe a press release from God that tells these people they are wrong, then they would be ignorant (i.e. they would be ignoring the facts that disproved their interpretation or ignoring new facts that shed additional light on their belief system).  It seems to me that these people aren't "ignorant" (they understand snakes = bad and that advances in modern technology could provide them with a safer and better life) they just believe that pissing off a snake is the right thing to do.

Again, I don't agree with their position and I'm not trying to be confrontational, I'm just trying to understand why you think they are unenlightened (rather than just "wrong").

EDIT:



Now that's ignorant.  But, in my opinion it's not really related to the snake people or the Amish.  Soulflames example is either choosing to ignore facts because it's convient, or not knowing all the facts, while the Amish and Snake Handlers know the facts but choose to perform their acts because their interpretation of a book leads them to believe that it's the right thing to do.  One is ignorant the other is just wrong.

Personally, I find the Amish admirable.  Snake handlers, not so much.

You're right - the belif isn't about not being bitten, it's about being immune to toxins.  They bite, and God saves them from being killed from the toxin (snake/drink).

"100 documented deaths from serpent bites" is a useless statistic - the church is supposed to be just over 100 years old.  When did they start documenting this?  How many "snake handlings" are there in a year?  How many total churches are there?  How many snake handlers are there?  How often do they handle snakes?  Not enough info.

Regarding the person bit fourteen times - presumably this is without medical treatment, since that's part of the religious experience.  It takes about 100mg of venom to kill a normal, healthy, adult.  The typical dimondback injects in the neighborhood of 150-350mg per bite (but dry bites are possible).  Rattle bites are serious, immediate, medical emergencies (but survivability is near guaranteed with treatment - mortality is around 1%).  If they survived fourteen hits of that, I'm impressed.  Impressed too, that there are only 100 documented deaths from it.  fyi, there are around a dozen deaths due to snakebite per year in the US (just for comparison).



Because people often label what they don't understand as stupid (wrong, immoral, evil, primitive, barbaric, etc, depending on application).

I don't know.  I have issues with the text (there are historical issues with that passage), as well as their interpretation of it.  On the other hand, it takes a lot of conviction to do what they do, and it is a conscious, thought-out act.  It isn't out of disenfranchisement (which causes a lot of the Muslem suicide bombers to do what they do) - they are by community standards, and outside church by most of our standards, to be well adjusted.  I don't agree with them, but damn.  They've got balls.

So basically, you agree with me on the Amish.  And for essentially the same reasons I have.

Huh.  Why did you type anything again?

I think that comes from several factors- the conflation of the original group (the Romanian vampire killers) with the Appalachian snake handlers and the Amish (with some Papua New Guinea aboriginals thrown in) being first among them. The discussion eventually veered into a 'primitive' culture debate in which I was attempting to use the numerous groups to make a specific point.



I understand snake handling and the belief in vampires (and the subsequent practices to prevent their rising) reasonably well.  I just happen to think both are: stupid, wrong, barbaric, and primitive. I don't find them particularly immoral or evil, however.

My mistake. According to Way's article, snake handlers aren't ignorant.

But yes, they are in fact stupid. If you know drinking hemlock will probably cause your death, and you aren't suicidal, and you still drink the hemlock because you think "God told you to," yes, you are, in fact, quite unbelievably stupid and do not deserve to be on this earth.

Maybe that's the secret. Maybe the test from God in the snake handlers' cases isn't that God wanted you to test your faith against the snakes. Maybe God was trying to test your faith in yourself. If you believe in yourself, you'll tell the man saying "God wants you to test the serpent" to go fuck himself. If you don't, and your self-worth is tied to your faith in God, or at least what your preacher says in God, then you fail the test, get bitten, and either die or nub your willy for the rest of your naturally-born stupid life.

EDIT: And since it was brought up, I put Muslem suicide bombers in the same category of stupid. Sure, it's ballsy, and takes conviction. Still stupid. God doesn't want you to kill yourself, or take ridiculous action to get yourself killed.

Unless, of course, you're stupid.