Birds are my passion, they always have been. I love the varieties they come in and the fact that they can fly is something to really envy. The fact is though that I have always been intrigued by all animals, snakes included. I have not had snakes as pets because of Nery's deathly fear of them and because everyone around me either hates them or are afraid of them. This all changed a few months ago when Nery gave her blessing to allow Dave to house his snakes in one of our empty bedrooms. Since that time she also gave her blessing for Dave to give me the 2 ball pythons for my birthday, this hasn't changed how she feels about snakes but she has allowed them in the house.
I have talked to several people who have made comments like "if I see a snake in my yard I kill it" this is not only sad it is stupid. Snakes eat rodents, rodents get into our stuff and spread desease. I came across an article in defence of snakes and a little history about snakes in the world that I will post here in sections so it won't be too much to read all at once. I will finish with some quotes from a few LDS leaders including Joseph Smith regarding respect for animals as.
Here is the first installment...
In Defense of Snakes, Serpents,
and Other Lizard Types
by Lana Rings
Fort Worth and Arlington, Texas
Snakes figure prominently in the Night Sky. Draco the dragon is today almost at the hub of the zenith, and was actually there 5000 years ago. The Serpent Holder is a huge constellation, a human being holding a long snake in each hand and representing healing. The Hydra is a long water snake--one of the longest constellations, upon whose back a cauldron and a raven rest. In addition, many Greek myths informing the Greek constellation stories deal with snakes and serpents and sea monsters as positive and negative images.
Before Olympian Greeks put their mythology up into the existing constellations of the night sky, thus erasing older tales of the same constellations, snakes were perceived differently. They disgust us in the United States and Europe. Today we hate them. Other peoples didn't and don't.
Other animals have also been maligned in later times, as will be shown when we wend our way through their constellations. Still others were not maligned. Yet the snake is the most significant animal, because it was an important animal in the pre-Greek, pre-Judeochristian lives and religions of the Near East--and because it is perhaps the most misunderstood. As we look into the constellations that seem to form the sky of the goddess, the snake will return several times. Other animals will be addressed just as well, though, for they, too, have their goddess stories. It will be against this background that we will then be able to look up into the night sky and view the constellations. But in defense of the poor snake, we need at least several pages.
Snakes in the Western World Today
The Lord God said to the serpent, "Because you have done this, cursed are you above all cattle, and above all wild animals; upon your belly you shall go, and dust you shall eat all the days of your life. I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed and her seed...." Genesis 3:14-15.
Scholars annotating this 1973 version of the Oxford Bible comment: "The curse contains an old explanation of why the serpent crawls rather than walks and why men are instintively hostile to it" (my italics) [p.5].
One might think that the loathing and disgust with which many people react to snakes is an emotional reaction, even a natural reaction to predators so different-looking from ourselves. Even sophisticated scholars think we are "instinctively hostile" to the snake, based on the quote above. Yet, it is our contention that the origin of our loathing comes from religious sources--even for those of us who do not consider ourselves religious anymore. The bad rap that snakes have gotten is not due to any innate disgust we have for snakes, for such a disgust has not existed at all times among people, as we shall see, nor is it even universal across cultures today, as we shall also see. It is a cultural phenomenon, tightly linked to our traditional ideas of good and evil, light and dark, and body and spirit.
Before we had such dualistic, opposing concepts, snakes were perceived differently. Snakes were considered part of the holiest of the holy. It is for that very reason that the proponents of the later religions that came into the lands of the snake-revering peoples had to make the snake so evil. If they hadn't suppressed the reverence for the snake with a loathing of it--and with force over centuries, their religions could not have taken hold and ultimately wiped out much of what was those older religions.
In the United States if you merely mention snakes to people, they often react with disgust and cringing. Even in rattlesnake roundups in the mid- to southwest, snakes are treated with contempt and unnecessary kicking. In Oklahoma they are hunted and caught, then left without food or water for a month or more, left weakened and confused in an alien world. Our loathing of snakes is not restricted to religion, although that is where it may have begun. We have no respect for snakes, nor do we understand anything about them or want to learn about them.
Recently, attitudes have begun changing. Experts in zoos, especially wanting to help people re-establish ties with nature that have been broken through our lives in the cities and our hierarchical attitude towards it ("we are better than animals and nature") in an effort to regain a respect for our environment and ecological systems, have begun showing snakes to children and adults and instituting educational programs about them, among other animals. They are teaching that snakes are not loathsome, disgusting, or evil, and allow children and adults to pet and handle them as well. Even public television has been involved in educating people about snakes. Yet, by and large, many people still cringe at the thought of snakes.
The Public Broadcasting System released a special on "The Serpent," debunking some attitudes held towards snakes and informing the public of their lives, maintaining that we fear snakes, and that that fear is due to ignorance and misunderstanding about them. Snakes live the world over, from "jungles to desert," "from trees to the sea." Most of them are "shy and unaggressive." Most are non-poisonous. True, they are predators, but so are human beings! They are powerful predators, and can kill their prey with a single bite. Some of the pythons have a powerful grip and indeed cause the human imagination to run wild. But snakes are also in danger from all kinds of predators themselves.
Their smell is on their forked tongue; thus, they stick it out to detect smells. Pythons can detect body heat on mammals and birds and thus tell where they are because they can "see" infrared, i.e., they have a sense that detects infrared. Their heads and jaws are expandable so that they can take in a fairly large meal and perform "feats of swallowing." In their bones snakes can detect vibration. But they have no ears.
They cannot see details well, so the movement of several young animals adjacent to each other might be perceived by a snake as the movement of one large animal, causing concern and fear in the snake. And snakes usually do not want to attack humans. They do not have endless supplies of venom and need to use it on their prey for food, so they will use it in self-defense against humans or other animals as a last resort, after they have tried their innate methods of warning, consisting of either hissing, rattling, showing their hood, or rubbing their scales together.
No snakes hunt humans, and they warn before they bite. In fact, no snakes show malice towards us. There is only one snake that is venomous and extremely aggressive (that would be the Black Mamba of Africa) this is my comment sc.
I have talked to several people who have made comments like "if I see a snake in my yard I kill it" this is not only sad it is stupid. Snakes eat rodents, rodents get into our stuff and spread desease. I came across an article in defence of snakes and a little history about snakes in the world that I will post here in sections so it won't be too much to read all at once. I will finish with some quotes from a few LDS leaders including Joseph Smith regarding respect for animals as.
Here is the first installment...
In Defense of Snakes, Serpents,
and Other Lizard Types
by Lana Rings
Fort Worth and Arlington, Texas
Snakes figure prominently in the Night Sky. Draco the dragon is today almost at the hub of the zenith, and was actually there 5000 years ago. The Serpent Holder is a huge constellation, a human being holding a long snake in each hand and representing healing. The Hydra is a long water snake--one of the longest constellations, upon whose back a cauldron and a raven rest. In addition, many Greek myths informing the Greek constellation stories deal with snakes and serpents and sea monsters as positive and negative images.
Before Olympian Greeks put their mythology up into the existing constellations of the night sky, thus erasing older tales of the same constellations, snakes were perceived differently. They disgust us in the United States and Europe. Today we hate them. Other peoples didn't and don't.
Other animals have also been maligned in later times, as will be shown when we wend our way through their constellations. Still others were not maligned. Yet the snake is the most significant animal, because it was an important animal in the pre-Greek, pre-Judeochristian lives and religions of the Near East--and because it is perhaps the most misunderstood. As we look into the constellations that seem to form the sky of the goddess, the snake will return several times. Other animals will be addressed just as well, though, for they, too, have their goddess stories. It will be against this background that we will then be able to look up into the night sky and view the constellations. But in defense of the poor snake, we need at least several pages.
Snakes in the Western World Today
The Lord God said to the serpent, "Because you have done this, cursed are you above all cattle, and above all wild animals; upon your belly you shall go, and dust you shall eat all the days of your life. I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed and her seed...." Genesis 3:14-15.
Scholars annotating this 1973 version of the Oxford Bible comment: "The curse contains an old explanation of why the serpent crawls rather than walks and why men are instintively hostile to it" (my italics) [p.5].
One might think that the loathing and disgust with which many people react to snakes is an emotional reaction, even a natural reaction to predators so different-looking from ourselves. Even sophisticated scholars think we are "instinctively hostile" to the snake, based on the quote above. Yet, it is our contention that the origin of our loathing comes from religious sources--even for those of us who do not consider ourselves religious anymore. The bad rap that snakes have gotten is not due to any innate disgust we have for snakes, for such a disgust has not existed at all times among people, as we shall see, nor is it even universal across cultures today, as we shall also see. It is a cultural phenomenon, tightly linked to our traditional ideas of good and evil, light and dark, and body and spirit.
Before we had such dualistic, opposing concepts, snakes were perceived differently. Snakes were considered part of the holiest of the holy. It is for that very reason that the proponents of the later religions that came into the lands of the snake-revering peoples had to make the snake so evil. If they hadn't suppressed the reverence for the snake with a loathing of it--and with force over centuries, their religions could not have taken hold and ultimately wiped out much of what was those older religions.
In the United States if you merely mention snakes to people, they often react with disgust and cringing. Even in rattlesnake roundups in the mid- to southwest, snakes are treated with contempt and unnecessary kicking. In Oklahoma they are hunted and caught, then left without food or water for a month or more, left weakened and confused in an alien world. Our loathing of snakes is not restricted to religion, although that is where it may have begun. We have no respect for snakes, nor do we understand anything about them or want to learn about them.
Recently, attitudes have begun changing. Experts in zoos, especially wanting to help people re-establish ties with nature that have been broken through our lives in the cities and our hierarchical attitude towards it ("we are better than animals and nature") in an effort to regain a respect for our environment and ecological systems, have begun showing snakes to children and adults and instituting educational programs about them, among other animals. They are teaching that snakes are not loathsome, disgusting, or evil, and allow children and adults to pet and handle them as well. Even public television has been involved in educating people about snakes. Yet, by and large, many people still cringe at the thought of snakes.
The Public Broadcasting System released a special on "The Serpent," debunking some attitudes held towards snakes and informing the public of their lives, maintaining that we fear snakes, and that that fear is due to ignorance and misunderstanding about them. Snakes live the world over, from "jungles to desert," "from trees to the sea." Most of them are "shy and unaggressive." Most are non-poisonous. True, they are predators, but so are human beings! They are powerful predators, and can kill their prey with a single bite. Some of the pythons have a powerful grip and indeed cause the human imagination to run wild. But snakes are also in danger from all kinds of predators themselves.
Their smell is on their forked tongue; thus, they stick it out to detect smells. Pythons can detect body heat on mammals and birds and thus tell where they are because they can "see" infrared, i.e., they have a sense that detects infrared. Their heads and jaws are expandable so that they can take in a fairly large meal and perform "feats of swallowing." In their bones snakes can detect vibration. But they have no ears.
They cannot see details well, so the movement of several young animals adjacent to each other might be perceived by a snake as the movement of one large animal, causing concern and fear in the snake. And snakes usually do not want to attack humans. They do not have endless supplies of venom and need to use it on their prey for food, so they will use it in self-defense against humans or other animals as a last resort, after they have tried their innate methods of warning, consisting of either hissing, rattling, showing their hood, or rubbing their scales together.
No snakes hunt humans, and they warn before they bite. In fact, no snakes show malice towards us. There is only one snake that is venomous and extremely aggressive (that would be the Black Mamba of Africa) this is my comment sc.
1 comment:
Very interesting. I could see how the symbol of serpents in Christianity may have caused a universal contempt for snakes in the Western world- but, a lot of people are afraid of spiders too and there are no scriptural references of such that I can think of.
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