A Filipino villager has been nailed to a wooden cross for the 35th time to reenact Jesus Christ’s suffering in a brutal Good Friday tradition he said he would devote to pray for peace in Ukraine, Gaza and the disputed South China Sea.
On Friday, over a hundred people watched on as 10 devotees were nailed to wooden crosses, among them Ruben Enaje, a 63-year-old carpenter and sign painter. The real-life crucifixions have become an annual religious spectacle that draws tourists in three rural communities in Pampanga province, north of Manila.
The gory ritual resumed last year after a three-year pause due to the coronavirus pandemic. It has turned Enaje into a village celebrity for his role as the “Christ” in the Lenten reenactment of the Way of the Cross.
Ahead of the crucifixions, Enaje told The Associated Press by telephone Thursday night that he has considered ending his annual religious penitence due to his age, but said he could not turn down requests from villagers for him to pray for sick relatives and all other kinds of maladies.
This just seems like blasphemy to me. He is trying to impersonate Jesus Christ with this reenactment. This goes beyond a church play to reenact the crucifying of Christ.
Certain people are hung up on suffering without ever moving on to what the Easter story is about: redemption.
Religion is blasphemy in and of itself.
Really? I believe it is there to teach morals and principles. I feel like it’s a comfort for those who have lost others, or have lost hope. Some people take it to an extreme, and use it to justify actions that aren’t always moral. I don’t see how worship and faith are blasphemy, though. Could you explain a little more about that?
All one needs to do is look at the shitty things that god asks of us. Why was it okay for god to fuck with Abraham and command him to murder his son? Why did god fuck with Job, because some other imaginary friend (who is somehow inferior to god and yet never vanquished by god) decided to talk shit? Where is the morality here? Why were the Israelites commanded to kill even the livestock of Amalek? What happened to “thou shalt not kill?”
It’s all a bunch of contradictory horseshit meant to keep the feebleminded in their place. You can contort it any fucking which way you want (and I have heard a lot of these contortions, having been indoctrinated into this shit at a young age), but all one need do is to examine the tremendous evils perpetrated throughout history to see that religion and morality have not a thread in common.
He should be more like Peter who refused to imitate Jesus and was thus crucified upside down.