Snake-handling Churches in America

Snake-handling is a religious ritual practiced in a small number of Pentecostal churches in the Appalachian Mountains and southeastern region of the United States. These Christians handle live poisonous snakes as part of their worship services.

The main scripture used to support the practice is Mark 16:17-18, which has Jesus saying:

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

Bart Ehrman's "Jesus, Interrupted": New York Times Bestseller

I recently came across a book that does an excellent job of explaining the enormous gap in knowledge that exists between Bible scholars and the rest of the population, which is Bart Ehrman's Jesus, Interrupted: Revealing the Hidden Contradictions in the Bible (And Why We Don't Know About Them). This is one of Ehrman's four New York Times bestsellers, which explains why he is one of the most well-known Bible scholars among the general public.

In this book Ehrman recounts his personal journey as a conservative evangelical Christian who went to Princeton Theological Seminary to earn a doctorate, and was determined to hang on to his belief that the Bible was the inerrant Word of God. But at Princeton he was exposed to the critical-historical methods of research into the writings that make up the Bible for the first time, and this experience would forever change his entire view of what the Bible actually is.

He explains in detail how and why he changed his views on the Bible. In short, when one is exposed to higher education in this field, you discover things you've never heard before, and the evidence is simply overwhelming. It also just makes far more sense than the simplistic approach to the Bible taught in fundamentalist churches. I can identify with Ehrman because I had the same experience 16 years ago when I first started doing this kind of research.

True/False Bible Trivia Questions For Kids

This is not just a Bible question for kids, adults also often raise these kind of questions online: "How do Christians know that the Christian Bible is actually their god's word?". I picked a few answers from Yahoo and I'll leave it all to you. How would you answer that question?

One person wrote, "I have read the bible day and night when I was a kid. It was a compulsory reading by my grand parents. Thank god I finished it before I learned my roman numerals and I know the story by heart. In fact I have several favorite characters in the Bible, like Moses the great leader of Israel, Samson- the long-haired strong man/ Jonah, famous for being swallowed by the whale and Satan, a good angel named Lucifer who turned evil by wanting to make himself into God. Of course the infamous character the mastermind of the killings and slaughtering people with a pseudonym "God" or "Lord" in the Old Testament."

Here is a random answer from someone: "We don't. In fact, I have become quite suspicious of the Bible recently. Actually, I first had issues with the Bible when I read a passage in the old testament as a teen on the issue of rape. It made me mad at God. I went through years of not even owning a Bible, because I never read it anyway. But I kept on with my prayers, and through many hard times could tell that God was with me. So now, I don't blame God, I put the blame on the humans where it belongs. There are some extremely crazy and hateful things in that book, and those hateful words are not the word of God. I do like the words in red. The man they say spoke those words was definitely a very wise and loving man."

Recommended scholarly books on the Bible

Here's a list of scholarly books I can recommend on the Bible.

These focus on the Christ myth theory - that Jesus was originally a fictional/mythical figure and only later was historicized:

1. The Christ Myth Theory and Its Problems - Robert M. Price.
2. Jesus: Neither God Nor Man - Earl Doherty.
3. Beyond the Quest for the Historical Jesus - Thomas L. Brodie.
4. The Jesus Mysteries – Timothy Freke and Peter Gandy.
5. Nailed: Ten Christian Myths That Show Jesus Never Existed At All - David Fitzgerald.
6. The Jesus of the Early Christians: A Study in Christian Origins - G.A. Wells.
7. The Christ Conspiracy: The Greatest Story Ever Sold – Acharya S.
8. The Pagan Christ – Tom Harper.
9. The Incredible Shrinking Son of Man – Robert M. Price.
10. The Jesus Puzzle – Earl Doherty.
11. Suns of God: Krishna, Buddha and Christ Unveiled - Acharya S.
12. Christ in Egypt: The Horus-Jesus Connection - Acharya S.
13. Who Was Jesus? Fingerprints of the Christ - Acharya S.
14. Jesus and the Lost Goddess – Timothy Freke and Peter Gandy.
15. The Laughing Jesus – Timothy Freke and Peter Gandy.
16. The Jesus Legend – G.A. Wells.

Robert M. Price: Why religions demand belief

On Bible scholar Dr. Robert M. Price's excellent podcast "The Bible Geek", he answers listeners' emailed questions. On one episode a listener asked why religions demand something as odd as belief. He noted that there doesn't seem to be anything moral or ethical about it, it doesn't feed the hungry or help the poor, etc. It just seems bizarre that faith-based religions revolve around this idea that belief is so important.

Dr. Price responded with this:

It does seem that they're asking for the one thing that will throw you off the path of any kind of critical thinking. If you start this way you're starting off on the wrong foot, on the path to intellectual dishonesty. If you believe the slate of things for which there is no evidence, well, if they can convince you they're authoritative on that, you'll believe anything they say. 

And just to take a step back, why is it that the whole thing is based on something for which there's no evidence? Why do you even need faith in this unless there's some kind of a scam being pulled? I mean, what's commendable about believing something when there's no evidence for it? Why is credulity a virtue?

Bible contradictions: A fundamentalist preacher reacts

Many years ago when I was a Christian, a friend of mine showed me an apparent contradiction in the Bible that a non-Christian friend of his had pointed out. I looked at the passages and it certainly appeared to be an obvious contradiction. 

The two passages are from Acts 9:7 and Acts 22:9. These passages deal with the story of the sudden conversion of Saul of Tarsus to Christianity on the road to Damascus, who would later be called the apostle Paul. Saul had been persecuting Christians, and was headed to Damascus to do the same. Here's the passage from Acts chapter 9 (King James Version):

Thomas Paine: Quotes on Christianity

The American revolutionary Thomas Paine's common sense quotes on Christianity:

Is it not a species of blasphemy to call the New Testament revealed religion, when we see in it such contradictions and absurdities.

- Thomas Paine

The fable of Christ and his twelve apostles…is a parody of the sun and the twelve signs of the Zodiac, copied from the ancient religions of the Eastern world…. Every thing told of Christ has reference to the sun…

- Thomas Paine 

The age of ignorance commenced with the Christian system.

- Thomas Paine