A Florida toddler was killed this morning when she was strangled by the family’s pet python.

The deadly accident occurred in Oxford, about 50 miles NW of Orlando, at around 9:30 am. Details surrounding the incident are scarce, but Lt. Steve Binegar of the Sumter County Sheriff’s Office confirmed the incident to the press. He refused to answer further questions regarding the tragic death of the two-year-old girl.

Although pythons are not native to Florida, they have increasingly been spotted in the wild in recent years. Burmese pythons are particularly popular, and oftentimes pet owners will release the snakes into areas such as the Everglades when they become too large to manage at home or lose their novelty. They are known to be an invasive species in Florida and have reproduced prolifically after their artificial introduction to the area.

Burmese pythons can weigh up to 150 lbs and measure more than 15 feet in length. The animals are known to use constriction as a means of catching and killing prey, including humans.

Scary: Toddler strangled to death by pet python is a post from: The Inquisitr

On arriving, the tribe asked the missionary whether he had seen or experienced any of the things he was telling them about. He had to admit that he hadn’t. From Freethinker.co.uk

The Pirahãs, he said, “believed that the world was as it had always been, and that there was no supreme deity”. Furthermore they had no creation myths in their culture. In short, here was a people who were more than happy to live their lives “without God, religion or any political authority”.

Despite Everett translating the Book of Luke into Pirahã and reading it to tribe members, the Pirahãs sensibly resisted all his attempts to convert them.

According to a report in the New Yorker:

His zeal soon dissipated … Convinced that the Pirahã assigned no spiritual meaning to the Bible, Everett finally admitted that he did not, either. He declared himself an atheist …

It took Everett 19 years to confess he was no longer a believer, and it cost him his marriage and contact with two of his three children.

The Pirahãs have shown me that there is dignity and deep satisfaction in facing life and death without the comforts of heaven or the fear of hell, and of sailing towards the great abyss with a smile.

And they have shown me that for years I held many of my beliefs without warrant. I have learned these things from the Pirahãs, and I will be grateful to them for as long as I live.

Read the full report here. You can buy the book Don’t Sleep, There Are Snakes: Life and Language in the Amazonian Jungle here

Amazonian tribe turned a missionary into an atheist is a post from: The Inquisitr