Signs to accompany belivers

An exegesis and analysis of scripture.

Mark 16: 15-18
“[A]nd these signs will accompany those who believe: In my name they will drive out demons; they will speak in new tongues; they will pick up snakes with their hands; and when they drink deadly poison, it will not hurt them at all; they will place their hands on sick people, and they will get well.”

My questions:

• When was the last sighting of a demon? 
• Was it ever demons in the first place? Could it have been epilepsy? Insanity? 
• Are we indwelt by the Holy Spirit in the same way that some are possessed by demons? Both are spiritual forces that try to control us. 
• What new tongues? 
• The gibberish that Pentecostals shout may be a tongue, but it sure isn’t a supernatural sign. I could shout gibberish and still not believe. 
• Supernaturally learning English? 
• Aren’t those snake-handling people weird? Is that a supernatural sign? 
• Is a snake handler always a believer? 
• Paul did it, but so did Steve Irwin. 
• Will you drink poison? Do you believe? 
• Really, would you drink poison to prove you believe? 
• No antidotes, and you must be perfectly healthy afterwards. 
• Will you heal a certain person I have in mind? 
• If there is a healing, is it because 
• You have a supernatural gift? 
• The sick visited their doctor? 
• The hypochondriac wasn’t sick in the first place? 
• If there is no healing, is it because 
• The heal-ee didn’t have enough faith? 
• You don’t believe? 
• God isn’t here anymore? 

Is my problem a lack of understanding? Should the “will” in the first sentence be a “may”? Should we ignore the Christian testimony of a person who does not display these signs of belief? If these are the identifying marks of believers, what reason is there to believe that anyone believes? If God is still around, why doesn't he make it evident?

I’m sure that all this amounts to heresy, but nowadays priests don’t kill people for that. Reasoned arguments work all the time, torturing heretics is a thing of the past. So, without telling me that testing God is evil or that all the answers are in the good book, please show me the truth. If God is rational, his promoters need to be also.

Don’t get me wrong, I believe the Bible is a true account of history. It is so accurate with history that it is most likely right with its account of the supernatural. I just doubt it's a good description of our current relationship with God. Once upon a time there were miraculous healings, but 2000 years pass and all we have are weirdos with snakes or speakers of gibberish. If God was more than this, why isn't he now?

An Anti-Social Comment

From On Solitarinesse by Michel de Montaigne, found in The Second Great Booklet put out by The Underground Grammarian. 

VERILY, a man of understanding hath lost nothing if he yet have himself. When the city of Nola was overrun by the barbarians, Paulinus, bishop thereof, having lost all he had there and being their prisoner, prayed thus to God: "Oh Lord, deliver me from feeling of this loss; for thou knowest as yet they have touched nothing that is mine." The riches that made him rich and the goods that made him good were yet absolutely whole. Behold what it is to choose treasures well that may be freed from injury, and to hide them in a place where no man may enter and which cannot be betrayed but by ourselves.