Look at this headline: Horror moment US pastor is bitten by a deadly snake during a service leaving him drenched in blood. It appears in the The Sun, a UK tabloid published in London, and they have a comments feature. Here are some excerpts from the story, with bold font added by us for emphasis, and occasional Curmudgeonly interjections that look [like this]:
[A] snake bit – and almost killed – a controversial American pastor who was performing a bizarre service with the reptile in Kentucky. Drenched in his own blood, Cody Coots had to be carried out of the Full Gospel Tabernacle church, one of the few in the country which still allows snake-handling. Cody’s father Jamie, 42, was killed when a rattlesnake bit him in a similar ritual back in 2014 but that does not put him off performing the same death-defying service.
Cody’s got courage! Hey — his church is in Kentucky. We wonder if he’s a regular visitor to ol’ Hambo’s creationist tourist attractions? He probably is. Anyway, the tabloid says:
After he was bitten and collapsed on the ground, Cody asked to be taken to the mountaintop where God would judge whether he should live or die. [A reasonable request.] But his friend, also named Cody, instead drove him to the hospital where a doctor said the snake came close to severing his temporal artery which would have killed him.
The tabloid has lots of pictures and videos of the thrilling events. The congregation looks like the “before” photo in a weight-loss commercial. You’ll want to click over there to get the full experience. The tabloid tells us:
His church’s unique way of proving their religious devotion is inspired by the biblical verse in Mark 16:18: “They will pick up serpents, and if they drink any deadly poison, it will not hurt them.” The death of Cody’s father thrust him into the pastor’s role at the age of just 23, making him the fourth generation to take up the snake-handling vocation.
A glorious tradition! The news continues:
In the US, the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that between 7,000 and 8,000 people are bitten by venomous snakes each year, and about five of those people die. [Only five? That’s good.] And in the past six years, there have been three recorded deaths in the US from snake bites during religious services.
Interesting statistics. There’s lots more in the news article, but we know you’re going to read it all for yourself, so we’ll quit here. All we can say in conclusion is that we wonder if ol’ Hambo has as much faith as Cody. If he does, why doesn’t he show us?
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