4/13/2006: Bloody Easter

You think you take Easter celebrations seriously, what with your whole Cadbury Egg-eating and such? You're a piker compared to the likes of this guy. He's a Filipino, and he's engaged in flagellating himself, but just to make sure the process is as bloody as possible, he has someone else punch a few pinholes in his back first.

It's interesting partly because IotD has previously featured Ashoura, the Shiite festival which involves a lot of blood and self-punishment. So here a blood ritual is used during Easter. Did the idea of a blood ritual migrate halfway around the world and across religious boundaries? Or is bloodletting so basic to spirituality that it naturally becomes a part of the spiritual rituals?

And now in the days of HIV and other blood-borne pathogens, seriously people, this is just a really bad idea...

Dov would have like this picture.

It's an excellent example of how strongly a person's culture can affect them. I suspect that this guy's culture sees him as particularly devout. We see it as really icky and weird. In both cases, we see it as our culture has taught us.

Even with that understanding, I still think it's icky, weird, and unsanitary.

Looks like he has tied a bandana over his face to keep from seeing this happening. At least he knew enough to do that, otherwise he'd be unconscious on the street by now.

This guy is a slacker. He's nothing compared to the guys who have themselves crucified.

Talk about religious fanaticism...sheesh.

I'll stick to my egg hunts with the kids. A scrotum full of redbugs is about enough to satify my preferences.

I just had this horrific image of you walking along with flowered scrotum basket, picking redbugs off of the surrounding foliage and placing them in the basket.

Thanks.

Hey Amianthus, welcome to the Cellar.
Your right, every society has their extremist whackos. Some even make one their leader....or congressman.

or President.

Sunday, bloody Sunday...

And why does he have a plant on his face?

It's supposed to be a crown of thorns. And I imagine the bandanna on his face is an attempt at anonymity, so he can better represent Jesus rather than being recognizable as himself.

Amianthus - you're bang on, but I think it has more significance than just shared cultural roots. It seems like, in every culture, blood becomes an imporant feature of spiritual sacrifice. Blood is the vivid symbol of life, and spilling blood becomes a visceral (literally!) embodiment of sacrifical sacrament.

When I see these kinds of pictures I wonder what becomes of "Love your neighbor as yourself." It worries me because if you don't love yourself you cannot truly love your neighbor. Maybe this guy is okay but when others start acting on the world in a way that implies they have no love in their hearts, while claiming Jesus, it appears to miss the whole point.

The blindfold is part of the recreation - Jesus was blindfolded and beaten by the Roman soldiers.

Well I wouldn't call myself an expert on religion, by any means, however, I have read some on this topic before. If memory serve me correctly, then this isn't some sort of blood rite or ritual as it seems some of you have suggested, however, obviously for them the more blood the better. As it was mentioned before, some also are crucified, and in Roman times, crucifiction was one of the worst ways to die. In this picture, the man was being beat by a flagella, which is a crude sort of weapon/torture tool that was made up of many leather straps bound together at a handle. Each strap had nails or other sharp objects through them, and the person would be beaten usually on their backs, however, it would also wrap around the person and damage their front too. The nails would stick into thier flesh and then as the beater would raise his arm for another blow, the nails would rip through their flesh and sometimes would even pull out chunks of flesh with them. This was obviously very painful and bloody. Now if anyone has seen "The Passion of the Christ", then you would know that this was done to Jesus before he was crucified, and you know how terrible of a thing it would be to have done to anyone. So anyways, the reason these men do these sort of things is because they believe that by doing this then they are sharing in Jesus' suffering and atoning for their sins. So this may seem fanatical or extreme, however, I would say that it sure beats the heck out of blowing themselves up like muslims do to get into paradise. Most Christians throughout the rest of the world do not follow these same traditions because they recognize that because Jesus went through such pain and suffering and died on the cross, he took on the sins of the world and when he rose on Easter Sunday, that was his victory over sin, so as long as we place our faith in him and what he did for us, then our sins are forgiven and we will have earned our place in Heaven. So thats what it's all about.

Damn. Where's the offering plate?

Welcome to the Cellar, Shocker.

Quote:

Originally Posted by capnhowdy You may call them chiggers where you live. They cause a persistently embarrassing itch, and they always seem to latch on to your nutsac. They are abundant in this area.