Saturday, August 30, 2008

Misunderstood Predators

There has been for some time now a movement afoot, spearheaded by tree-huggers, to claim that predator fiends like sharks, snakes, alligators, and crocodiles have been misunderstood, and are akin to poor, cuddly, pooh bears. No, I say! They are not misunderstood, they are evil – especially the reptiles. When I went to school, it was always the creepy, future convicts that liked to bring snakes to school. Chateaubriand, in his masterwork, The Genius of Christianity, had this to say about snakes:

The present age rejects with disdain whatever savors of the marvelous; but the serpent has frequently been the subject of our observations, and, if we may venture to say it, we seem to recognize in that animal the pernicious spirit and artful malice which are ascribed to it in the Scriptures. Every thing is mysterious, secret, astonishing, in this incomprehensible reptile. His movements differ from those of all other animals. It is impossible to say where his locomotive principle lies, for he has neither fin nor wings; and yet he flits like a shadow, he vanishes as by magic, he reappears and is gone again, like a light azure vapor, or the gleams of a saber in the dark. Now he curls himself into a circle and projects a tongue of fire; now, standing erect upon the extremity of his tail, he moves along in a perpendicular attitude, as by enchantment. He rolls himself into a ball, rises and falls in a spiral line, gives to his rings the undulations of a wave, twines round the branches of trees, glides under the grass of the meadow, or skims along the surface of water. His colors are not more determinate than his movements. They change with each new point of view, and like his motions, they possess the false splendor and deceitful variety of the seducer.

Still more astonishing in other respects, he knows, like the murderer, how to throw aside his garment stained with blood, lest it should lead to his detection. By a singular faculty, the female can introduce into her body the little monsters to which she has
given birth. The serpent passes whole months in sleep. He frequents tombs, inhabits secret retreats, produces poisons which chill, burn, or checquer the body of his victim with the colors with which he is himself marked. In one place, he lifts two menacing heads; in another, he sounds a rattle. He hisses like the mountain eagle, or bellows like a bull. He naturally enters into the moral or religious ideas of men, as if in consequences of the influence which he exercised over their destiny. An object of horror or adoration, they either view him with an implacable hatred, or bow down before his genius. Falsehood appeals to him, prudence calls him to her aid, envy bears him in her bosom, and eloquence on her want. In hell he arms the scourges of the Furies…”
It is no coincidence that the snake is so popular in our modern, satanic society.

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