I guess with Darwin Day just behind us it is appropriate to bring up a couple of Darwin awards. First up:
Snake handling preacher in Ky. dies from rattlesnake bite. Dumbass. http://abcnews.go.com/US/snake-salvation-pastor-dies-snakebite/story?id=22542243 This guy had been featured in a “hey look at me I’m a dumbass” reality TV series. In this case reality rears its ugly head. Don’t tempt fate.
Next is some dingbat apparently decided to fly 4th class. That is by hiding in the wheel well of a plane. He did not survive. http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/body-found-airplane-wheel-vas-dulles-22535370
Life is difficult enough to navigate without taking needless risks. Half the time I can’t even get from my home to town without some oblivious fool trying to kill me with their car. Plus I have already taken enough risks to last me a lifetime, having been a commercial river diver for the last 30 years, fighting weather, currents, and idiots in bass boats and large cruisers, as well as having to dodge towboats pushing large tows. I understand that taking risks is a part of getting through life, but behaving in a manner that can easily get you killed needlessly, will only get you on someone’s Darwin Award list. Be smart out there. Life is short enough.
Evidence Based Reality 
I have just read of this snake handler on WEIT. And the fellow refused treatment, how stupid is that, really!
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Who says “yeah, that’s allright, I’ll go home and sleep off this rattlesnake bite!” ??
Just cuz Billy Jack pulled it off in the movies doesn’t mean a thing. 1. This guy ain’t no Billy Jack…
…and 2. Half the crap they pull in the movies does not apply in the real world.
This kind of stupid is almost as bad as that idiot terrorist that blew up his terrorist class last week. I mean c’mon man, how damn stupid can stupid get?
The last words muttered by many rednecks across the world…”hey man hold my beer” and “watch this” Roughly the equivalent of Mr. snake handler refusing treatment…
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Only a mad man tries that with a poisonous snake.
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Oh snap! JC took the high road and resisted the urge to “Darwin Award” the guy…
Do I feel bad? Not really, no. 🙂 When weapons grade stupid is exhibited it should be duly awarded.
Of course the guy has family, that will inevitably pawn it all off on “it was his time” or “dogs work in mysterious ways” or “he was called home to jebus” This is their M.O.
What is a shame is stuff like this can happen, and no lessons were learned. The stupid is encouraged to continue. It appears the preacher’s son may perhaps take over where daddy left off. I hope he has the good sense to think it through, and make a choice that might encourage him to lengthen his lifespan. I have sincere doubt that will happen.
Might as well take up break dancing in a minefield. It is at least as safe as playing with poisonous snakes.
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JC felt were it not for religion this fellow would still be alive. However, I think the guy is deserving of a Darwin Award
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My first thought was “there is an incalculable number of people that would have lived to die of old age were it not for religion.”
Still happening today. That number just keeps going up. The strangest thing is the religious seem impervious to this little tidbit of information. As if these things never happened, or are happening as we speak. If anything unpleasant about their faith crops up, it is just dismissed as inconsequential or “it doesn’t apply to me.”
I wonder at what point do the religious lose their objectivity? (such as the snake handler, or the people who let their children die with treatable conditions, victim blaming for rape, or any number of other scenarios) How and when does this impenetratable wall to reason develop?
In other cases what causes them as a group to determine a grisly fate for a person or an entire nation identified as outcasts? How do they justify their actions when they do? Were I a grad student I think this would be my area of study.
…seems I always have more questions than answers.
Thanks for stopping in Mak.
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When you ask lose, it assumes they have had it before me. Am not sure a person like the one who refuses to seek treatment after a snake bite or blows himself up training suicide bombers has ever been objective in the sense you mean it.
I like responses that lead to more questions
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I’d like to think we are all born with an inate curiosity that drives our desire to learn. At some point during ones indoctrination to a cult the critical thinking skills one needs to adequetely interpret the world get stomped on and replaced with “cuz I said so”
Objectivity, “judgment based on observable phenomena and uninfluenced by emotions or personal prejudices” ( I stole that definition from an online dictionary), is what I like to think of as an application of critical thinking, soon follows along that dreary path to isolation in the mind. After all critical thinking and objectivity go hand in hand. Need one to have the other.
What use is there for analytical skills to take in the big picture, when the big picture has been replaced with a simplisitc childs drawing? Then all efforts are made by those who perform the indoctrinations to maintain that perspective.
Guess the short of it is indoctrination is a form of brainwashing. A molding of the mind by controlling input, and providing handy explanations for the few questions asked, and doing their damnedest to keep those questions to a minimum.
There is a tipping point in there somewhere. A point of no return. The thing that intrigues me the most is where is that point exactly? Where is that spot where ones mind is effectively shut down, locked out from reason…?
Oh they can still perform the neccessary chores to hold down a job, and shove food into their pie holes, but the desire to learn, to expand knowledge, to understand the mysteries of the universe, that fire has been quenched.
You want to volunteer for an experiment Mak?
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Yes, am ready for an experiment if am going to be paid. When are we starting?
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Volunteers don’t get paid Mak…and I could not do that to you anyway, I like you too much to subject you to the mind control program known as religious indoctrination.
Not that I think it would work on you. You godless heathen! 😉
…I don’t think they could pay me enough money to sit still long enough for anyone to try and convert me. Within 5 minutes I’d say “screw this, lets go have a beer!”
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