A few years back, three older women came to my door to preach the gospel to me. I lived in a neighborhood of Milwaukee that had several churches just blocks away. One close-by church was Catholic and one was Lutheran, and there were several other Protestant denominations nearby too.
I went to the door and the oldest of the three ladies invited me to their church as she attempted to hand me something.
Not wanting to waste too much time with these people, who came uninvited to proselytize at my door, I said to them, "No thanks. You believe in talking snakes."
This screwed up the faces of two of the younger ladies who knew they weren't going to pull any bullshit on me, but the oldest one was undeterred. She quickly asked if I knew what ventriloquism was. Even she could sense the ridiculousness of her beliefs and she attempted to offer a naturalistic explanation of a "talking snake" to me standing at the door.
Likewise, undeterred, I said "You have no biblical justification for that." Dismissing her I said curtly "Thanks for stopping by" and closed the door on them. I wanted them to know that their invasion into my privacy was not welcomed and their superstition was unwelcomed too. What is it with some Christians who think that their proselytizing is welcome? They do this to me too on Facebook.
The Genesis account of Adam and Eve and the serpent is foundational to Christian beliefs because without original sin, there can be no doctrine of atonement and no need for Jesus Christ. Most Christians, especially if they are literalists, actually believe in a talking snake and magic fruit.
My gotcha moment exposed the ridiculousness of their religion and they knew it.
This incident occurred before Bill Maher's movie Religulous.
Wait what? Ventriloquism?
ReplyDeleteWas she attempting to say that satan just made it look like the snake was doing the talking, while he hid behind some bushes or something?
wtf?
That seems exceedingly silly, as a short while later god punishes snakes for the action of this one by taking off their legs and making people hate snakes. Presumably the snake that corrupts Eve (and via her, Adam) was the momma or daddy of all other snakes? Why then was their mate punished? There are no scenes explaining that Snake 1 managed to lassoo their mate into corrupting Eve together or anything...
huh, hadn't considered that side of things until I started writing this post.