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.
Maybe I’m alone, but this seems fine to me. I think evangelicals should take a page out of his book. Spend less time being horrible, and crucify themselves instead.
As much as I don’t condone needless violence, even against oneself…
You have a great point. They should be putting their money where their mouths are.
They can’t even wash people’s feet, despite all the superbowl commercials.
This is definitely closer to the spirit of the Christian religion than most other extreme manifestations.
Dunno why I remembered Frisians bricking people alive into dams in the Middle Ages.
Really sad people are hurting themselves over nothing.
Better themselves than others.
That’s a large portion of the history of humanity.
Not over nothing, just for no results and under false pretenses
Gaza is undergoing forced starvation and genocide.
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To everyone saying “it isn’t working” - you’re reading an article spreading the message of a Filipino villager in US media.
It’s not like that happens all that often.
So yes, it is working pretty well actually.
Not my choice for PR stunt, but to each their own.
absolutely the correct take
But to what end? 5 minutes of fame and then back to exactly how it was before?
We really need more people to learn the difference between good attention and bad attention. That is how we get morons blocking ambulances in London, throwing food at paintings, and people getting crucified.
Be the change you want to see in the world doesn’t mean do performative stunts for likes, clicks, and views. It means you do the hard work of fixing issues.
If his goal is to popularize his own stupidity, sure… it’s working.
It’s what Jesus would have wanted, I’m sure.
How else would he want to be remembered?
Feeding the poor?
Loving the different?
Starting a damn riot because someone charged interest on a loan?
Surely his favorite part of life was being tortured to death for those messages, so let’s all wear a tiny gold version of what killed him and forgot all that commie crap he constantly talked about
/s
Jesus didn’t talk about using force or the threat of force to confiscate other people’s wealth and give it away.
Someone hasn’t been reading their book of fairy tales…
It’s always amusing when people who are against religion pretend to be experts.
He litterly tells them after dumping out their money “Take these things hence; make not my Father’s house a house of merchandise.”
Jesus didn’t take their money, he told them to take their shit and leave.
As opposed to all the Christian denominations, sects, cults who can’t even agree on what the facts were, or which of the books, letters etc are to be included in their “correct” version on the bible.
What does any of that have to do with claiming the cleansing the temple parable shows Jesus promoting communism.
Absolutely nothing. It was a reply to your first sentence.
It’s more amusing to see how ignorant the religious are of their religion. Especial monotheists. You’ve only got the one god and you still can’t keep the rules straight.
Did jimbolauski say something incorrect?
Yeah, moved the goalpost from starting a riot to confiscating money and goods.
Which rules did I not keep straight?
Do you know what communism is? Or just what the McCarthyites told you?
Do you? I’ve never heard of read a bible verse about Jesus instructing his followers to seize the means of production.
Damn, its almost like Communism was invented AFTER Jesus supposed time
But even then, seizing the means would be more Socialism than Communism. Marx wrote as much, too, that Socialism is the stepping stone away from Capitalism and towards Communism
Damn, its almost like Communism was invented AFTER Jesus supposed time
Thanks for providing more evidence Jesus didn’t espouse communists ideas.
But even then, seizing the means would be more Socialism than Communism. Marx wrote as much, too, that Socialism is the stepping stone away from Capitalism and towards Communism
Here is the 4th plank of the communists party, as written by your buddy Karl in the communists manifesto. You should probably read the man’s works before you make claims about what he said
Fourth Plank: CONFISCATION OF THE PROPERTY OF ALL EMIGRANTS AND REBELS. (The confiscation of property and persecution of those critical - “rebels” - of government policies and actions, frequently accomplished by prosecuting them in a courtroom drama on charges of violations of non-existing administrative or regulatory laws.)
Me thinks you dont know what property is in this context.
Communism deprives no man of the power to appropriate the products of society; all that it does is to deprive him of the power to subjugate the labour of others by means of such appropriations.
Private property in the Manifesto doesnt mean theyre gonna take your toothbrush, ffs
I think you hit the nail on the hand with this comment.
“Fucking hell lads, I gave you the bread and wine thing. There’s no need for this!”
Well after he’s dead they start throwing around the line about needing to “carry the cross as I do.”
So people who believe that was accurately attributed certainly might think that’s what he wanted.
Well geez how much good has all that praying done so far?
Thoughts and prayers!
It’s not working too well but maybe we should just try to crucify rich people
Yeah, they’re definitely crucifying the wrong people.
Wouldn’t world peace involve not nailing people to crosses?
Yeah, but this guy doesn’t have a magical world peace wand so he’s doing this as a form of protest instead. Same principle as a hunger strike, or chaining yourself to a fence.
Humans.
Good luck next year, everybody. Maybe the 36th time is the charm
You will hear of wars and rumors of wars, but see to it that you are not alarmed. Such things must happen, but the end is still to come. 7 Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. There will be famines and earthquakes in various places.
Matthew 24
Why pray for something that Jesus Himself said wasn’t going to happen?
I thought this was an Onion article as I scrolled, wtf.
What a sick idea that we should celebrate a human being nailed to a cross, yuck. Another example of how religious beliefs are grotesque in the extreme and I’d rather believe in humanity instead of some supernatural shit like this.
There was no such person as Jesus and there never has been and there never as any such thing as “god” either. Stop being ignorant blind fools, people. Leave your shackles of religious nut-jobbery behind, go out and enjoy life and have some fun. Turn this “good Friday” into a GREAT Friday.
I think Jesus probably did exist, and he was probably a very successful cult leader who may have taken a lot of hallucinogens.
Well it’s sort of like Mohammed - I’m sure that a person with that name DID exist around that time at some point. And maybe they were a teacher and a self-proclaimed “speaker for god.” But so was Charles Manson and David Koresh and Jim Jones and Joseph Smith and many other horrible cult leaders.
There never has been any “god” in the way we mean it, so there could never actually be such a thing as the son of God, nor any need for one. If we were smart as a species, we’d see why it’s more important to support human beings than go around believing in religious nut jobbery.
Mohammed is not fully comparable. His life was on the outskirts of most of civilization meaning we should expect bad record keeping. Jesus was right in Jerusalem a major city in a major empire that documented stuff. We should expect that they would have records and that the records would have preserved since Christians controlled said records. Exactly what we do see. We have an abundance of records about the man from 2 centuries later. Nearly all Empire writings are missing from that time and yet Jesus is found repeatedly. If there were a letter talking about him or a court record or a particular landmark, and this guy really existed, we should have it. Which we don’t.
Where is the Kaaba of Jesus? Where is the tomb he was in? Where was he executed exactly? Where are all the relics of what he touched? History can’t say anymore than history can tell you the first time Batman threw a Batarang.
Now it is possible a man named Jesus son of Joseph existed in those years in that area. Just like it is possible someone named Bruce Wayne existed in NYC in 1939. That doesn’t mean this possible person was the minimum historical Jesus. That would still have to be demonstrated.
I don’t think he existed and there just isn’t evidence that the mushroom thing was going on in that time and place. No traces of it have been found and no writings or art mentions it.
Christus, from whom the name had its origin, suffered the extreme penalty during the reign of Tiberius at the hands of one of our procurators, Pontius Pilatus, and a most mischievous superstition, thus checked for the moment, again broke out not only in Judæa, the first source of the evil, but even in Rome, where all things hideous and shameful from every part of the world find their centre and become popular.
-Tacitus
Hearsay written a century after the supposed events. Gets Pilatus’s rank incorrect indicating he was repeating stories not consulting records.
Proof that stories are circulating aren’t proof that the stories happened. I am sure your parent’s Facebook feed is full of Covid vaccines stories.
Surely it will work this time.
These whackos are so far gone they literally crucify themselves… talk about natural selection
They also got the crucifixion wrong because you’re supposed to pin the victim to the cross through their wrist bones between the radius and ulna to ensure they don’t fall down and actually properly starve them to death for everyone to see.
If you pin through the hands the victim can just fall over and escape.
The Romans were very efficient in low effort highly visible displays of punishment.
key difference is they aren’t trying to actually kill the person. they even sanitize the nails apparently and presumably get medical treatment after.
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Abelist slurs aren’t allowed.
gonna post the same slur a third time once this is removed?
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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.
He should be more like Peter who refused to imitate Jesus and was thus crucified upside down.
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.
