What do you make of snake-phobic people?

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Originally Posted by SerpentesCiconii

The Bible never says anything about having to fear snakes......

John

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I don't think the op ment that the bible tells people to hate snakes. I think that the point was that people misinterpret the bible's context of when satan took the serpents form, that all snakes harbor the 'spirit of the devil' in them, or whatever people want to think. I interpret that story a little differently, but if you want to hear it, either start a new thread or contact me via PM.

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Originally Posted by icygirl

I'm not sure fear of snakes is instinctual. Lots of times little kids are the most curious and fascinated by snakes, while their parents are usually the "urghh.. *shudder*" culprits... which leads me to believe it's a learned behavior...

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I agree totally. It is a learned behavior. Kids are always curious about them and are way more willing to touch them than adults. I have freinds that won't come near them and their kids always want to hold them. I bought my first snake when my son was one and he will be 15 in December. He can't remember not ever having snakes. My daughters are huge snake fans and hold them all the time. If you get them young enough they won't develop any phobia. As long as they don't get tagged one day.

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Originally Posted by Purrrfect9

I don't think the op ment that the bible tells people to hate snakes. I think that the point was that people misinterpret the bible's context of when satan took the serpents form, that all snakes harbor the 'spirit of the devil' in them, or whatever people want to think. I interpret that story a little differently, but if you want to hear it, either start a new thread or contact me via PM.

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The main two points I have about the Adam and Eve story, of where people get the snake-evil connection, are as follows:
1. It never actually says that the snake offering the apple is Satan. It just says something along the lines of, the snake was the most sly of the creatures and ate the apple from the tree of knowledge, and then offered to Eve. Hence, snakes are associated with being wily or tricky.
2. God eventually punishes the snake by taking away its legs. Hence snakes are associated with something punished by God and therefore associated with the devil.

IMO, these stories should be interpreted for their overall message and not taken 100% seriously. Whenever any religious text is taking 100% literally, there are always problems. I mean, if you believe in evolution, you can't possibly take #2 seriously!

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Originally Posted by icygirl

I mean, if you believe in evolution, you can't possibly take #2 seriously!

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of course....NOT!!!

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Originally Posted by icygirl

I'd like to survey the crowd around here about what everyone thinks about ophidiophobia (fear of snakes), either minor or major cases.

I always ask myself, why the huge number of ophidiophobes out there? Every non-snake-oriented person I have ever met, when I talk about my BP, first thing I get asked is: "Does he bite?" I like to give the answer, "Nearly any animal will bite when provoked enough." But dogs and cats can bite and are certainly capable of lots of damage, and yet snakes get the worse rep for it.

Some people would point to the venom factor, that some snakes are deadly, but the fact is that snake phobic people exist even in areas where there is little to no danger of venomous snakes in the area, or even many wild snakes period.

I am starting to form a hypothesis that it has to do with snakes in our culture as symbols. It all started with the Adam and Eve story, as we all know. But it continues with the media and entertainment industry. E.g.,
-movies like Anaconda, Snakes on a Plane, etc. etc.
-the constant stream of shows on Discovery/Animal Planet about "snake wrangler" types and people who go after the most venomous snakes and almost get their heads bitten off when they get right up in the snake's territory and face. (Well, duh!)
-lack of information available that most snakes are not venomous

What does everyone have to say on this topic?

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It's the same thing as arachnophobia (yes, I'm a spider person). While I think that perhaps *some* people's fears of snakes *might* stem from the Genesis story, I think that is an extremely small percentage. The vast majority of people with phobias such as this and arachnophobia have the fear for one of a few reasons:
1. They had a traumatic experience with said "creature" at some point in time during their life, most commonly during childhood. (this is the rarest form of phobias such as these)
2. They are *taught* to fear them by their elders, peers, parents, etc. from an early age. (this is the most common reason for phobias of this type)
3. They don't know a flippin' thing about the animal(s) and blindly (and stupidly) believe the BS myths that people spread. (this too is one of the most common reasons for phobias of this type).

Like I said, it's absolutely no different than people who fear spiders. They ALL fall under one of the above 3 categories.

As far as how do I feel about them... well, it depends on the person. For example, a friend of mine and I were at a mutual friend's house a couple weeks ago and her 4 year old nephew was with her. Well Karen has this huge fear of... well, just about everything, including snakes and her nephew was teasing her with a rubber snake. She sat there and started telling him how awful and horrible snakes were, with the whole "EWWWW" thing going on. Needless to say, I jumped her butt for it and jumped down her throat for "teaching" her nephew to hate something that he, nor she know absolutely nothing about and that by doing so, she's disrespecting not only her nephew but everyone else as well. Then I offered to bring her nephew to my house to see my snakes... Karen just about crapped her pants. LOL

If adults *want* to look like ignorant idiots and fear something like a snake or a tarantula, that's their prerogative... I don't care if they make fools out of themselves in front of me by screaming, shuddering and dancing around like a drunkard and babbling uneducated nonsense... go right ahead while I laugh at you but DON'T TEACH YOUR KIDS YOUR STUPIDITY AND IGNORANCE!!!!!
That's what pisses me off.
:)

yeah, not to mention that arachnophobia is A LOT more common than ophidiophobia.

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Originally Posted by icygirl

The main two points I have about the Adam and Eve story, of where people get the snake-evil connection, are as follows:
1. It never actually says that the snake offering the apple is Satan. It just says something along the lines of, the snake was the most sly of the creatures and ate the apple from the tree of knowledge, and then offered to Eve. Hence, snakes are associated with being wily or tricky.
2. God eventually punishes the snake by taking away its legs. Hence snakes are associated with something punished by God and therefore associated with the devil.

IMO, these stories should be interpreted for their overall message and not taken 100% seriously. Whenever any religious text is taking 100% literally, there are always problems. I mean, if you believe in evolution, you can't possibly take #2 seriously!

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This is probably totally off topic but.... :)
1. The bible does not say the "fruit" is an apple.
2. The bible DOES say that the "serpent" is Satan... in many, many places.
3. The bible does not ever say that the "serpent" ate anything from the Tree of the knowledge of good and evil. What it *does* say is that Lucifer, an angel who got booted out of Heaven, took the form of a serpent and "tempted" Eve, assuring her that if she ate the fruit she surely would not die. Satan already had the knowledge of good and evil.... he was an angel, thus, no eating of fruit was necessary.

I agree, people should not take the fact that God "punished" the serpent by cursing it to have to "crawl on your belly and eat the dust of the earth for all your days" as something that God consideres evil and condemed for all snakes (serpents). Heck, if that were the case then people would have to consider worms and legless lizzards "evil" as well because, although worms are not "serpents" they too must "crawl on their bellies".

In my personal, God believing, biblical opinion, if God hated them, snakes/serpents, then He would have TOLD man that they were an abomination unto Him, like He did with pigs and various acts that people engage in but has never done so with snakes. As a matter of fact, there are other places in the bible where God uses snakes in particular to prove His point(s). ;) Does the bible tend to depict snakes as "evil", no. Does the bible tend to depict snakes as "scary", yes. The bible actually teaches that snakes are something to be wary of and to....... *respect*.
The religious world's teaching that the bible says that snakes are "evil" is a slant on a misinterpretation for the purpose of gaining control over others. Kind of like the teaching that birth control will send you straight to Hell; it is a misrepresentation based on a particular point of view and religious agenda/dogma to obtain and maintain a level of control over the minds and actions of followers based on "blind faith" in a particular belief and/or belief system without reading and discovering for ones self what may or may not be correct.

Now back to our regularly scheduled thread. :D

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Originally Posted by Snakeman

yeah, not to mention that arachnophobia is A LOT more common than ophidiophobia.

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Indeed!
And isn't it ironic.... spiders are MUCH smaller than even the smallest snake. :rolleyes: and that a seemingly harmless (non venomous) snake can do more harm to a person than a tarantula.
Now true spiders on the other hand, that's a different story, but true spiders and tarantulas are quite different.

I think people fear spiders because we consider insects as ugly or scary looking and large spiders are probably one of the scariest. This is a learned behavior which is handed down by parents and/or society. For example I watch my 3 year old grandson and his Mom is a chicken and afraid of bugs. So he sees her fear and he is also afraid of bugs, but when I go to feed my beardies I have a tub full of crickets when I have him help me he has no fear because I have no fear and thinks its fun to feed the lizards.

Now as far as the bible I believe the stories are symbolic and many people take too much time analyzing the minute deatails then learning the lesson that these stories symbolize. Creation and Genesis is a great example of this. The world was not formed in 7 days, but that is irrelevant, the authors had to give a reference to people that had NO mathematical knowledge whatsoever. So how to you tell someone that the big bang theory and billions of years of evolution and now there is a galaxy and universe, etc... You would confuse your audience with details that are unimporatnt instead they symbolically put it in a form that everyone can grasp and get to the important parts.

In my opinion science and the bible are not at odds only the closed minded people that interpret it are. I myself enjoy studiing all religions and find they also are not at odds. If you really look at them the all they repeat the same themes and lessons in different ways. It is the self righteous people that want their religion to be right and all the others to be wrong that look for the conflicts not the similarities.

For many years and still today many people have no knowledge of snakes and cannot tell the difference between a harmless snake and a dangerous venomous snake. Therefore most people learned to fear all snakes because a bite from a venomous is a painful death sentence. This is why snakes have been feared and associated with evil. Watching someone suffer and die from venom poisoning must be very traumatic and this is how and why the symbolism in the bible was used because people could related to that trauma. I have co workers from central america that think I'm a wack job for having snakes because they were raised to fear all snakes because they don't know a safe from dangerous one and so if they fear and avoid all snakes they are safe.

It makes sense, you just have too look at the other points of veiw to understand this LEARNED behavior.

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Originally Posted by Shadowspider

This is probably totally off topic but.... :)
1. The bible does not say the "fruit" is an apple.
2. The bible DOES say that the "serpent" is Satan... in many, many places.
3. The bible does not ever say that the "serpent" ate anything from the Tree of the knowledge of good and evil. What it *does* say is that Lucifer, an angel who got booted out of Heaven, took the form of a serpent and "tempted" Eve, assuring her that if she ate the fruit she surely would not die. Satan already had the knowledge of good and evil.... he was an angel, thus, no eating of fruit was necessary.

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I got my knowledge of this story from studying it in a comp-lit class, hahah. I am also only taking from the Genesis story, and not anything else, and in that particular story it doesn't actually say that it is Satan. But I haven't studied the New Testament so idk maybe it says more about it in there... so yeah :)

Also... one thing that pisses me off about Harry Potter (ok, I might get attacked for this) is that snakes are CONSTANTLY equated with evil. Why couldn't Rowling have a friendly snake in there, or something!?? Millions of people have read it or watched the movies, and there's that subliminal message again to fear snakes. :(