Everybody keeps mentioning the Nutty Putty cave incident guy on that post and I feel like that’s different because he was a Mormon so it wasn’t like he could get drunk or have an iced latte or watch an R rated movie, crawling into unfathomable small holes in caves was probably the only form of God-fearing entertainment he could access. I started typing this as a joke but quite a few Mormon influencers have taken an interest in extremely dangerous completely pointless adrenaline junkie hobbies, that’s how the guy from The King of Random died. I don’t live in a place with a whole lot of Mormons but it feels like a pattern for Mormon dudes?
I don’t understand Mormon theology but if the rest of it is kind of like prosperity doctrine, I would think these extremely dangerous activities feel like tests of faith to them and part of them believes only the unworthy would die in these situations. I think it might be that deep. Genuinely.
@greywarensoul Sure! Serpent handling is a religious rite performed in a few Holiness and Pentecostal churches, mostly in rural Appalachia. It hit its zenith in the mid 20th century and it’s a much more obscure practice now. It was a common feature of tent revivals and a trick traveling preachers would do to attract audiences before it became a set rite performed in churches, usually snakes are only handled by the preacher but sometimes the congregation joins in.
Quoting from Wikipedia on the scriptural justification, as I was not raised Christian.
Pictures of people taking up serpents as a test of faith:
It’s often done along with speaking in tongues, a practice Pentecostal/Holiness churches share with Mormonism. That was why I thought there may be a parallel, Mormonism held on to a lot of the folk Christian mysticism elements of the early 19th century, it shares features with some of these isolated sects.
It’s important to note that many of these people do in fact die from snake bites but their followers keep doing it anyway cuz religious delusions
Either that or maybe God just wasn’t on their side. I dunno. I reckon snakes are better judges of character than some people.
