Those pictures might be disturbing, but there are traditions all around the world that are just as bad. Circumcising male children and having children drink the blood of Christ are two traditions that might be seen as barbaric or strange to outsiders.
Absolutely. Female circumcision for instance. And we're going to stamp that out as well.
Yes but you don't actually drink the 'Blood of Christ' do you? You drink wine that has been transmogrified or represents the Blood of Chirst!
Circumcising male children and having children drink the blood of Christ are two traditions that might be seen as barbaric or strange to outsiders.
Sorry, in my church we drink WINE.
Circumcision has a medical basis and is performed by medical professionals, and I have never heard of ANYONE drinking the blood of Christ, since he died millenia ago. These people in the pictures aren't "figuratively" inflicting trauma on their children.
Circumcising male children, while it sounds (or even looks) bad, is done at a time when the child will feel the least pain, and at the point in time (the 8th day of life) when the body is prepared to heal as rapidly as possible. Further, it offers tremendous health benefits later on (chief among which is a lesser chance of penile cancer and a far lower rate of infection by STDs). All for a "barbaric" religious ritual.
"Circumcising male children and having children drink the blood of Christ are two traditions that might be seen as barbaric or strange to outsiders."
Great. Let's go for moral equivalence... not.
Circumcision, while I would agree it's brutal, has in it's roots a concern for cleanliness. It doesn't affect the child's function, and it is easier to keep clean. In past, less clean times, it was not necessarily a bad thing.
Drinking the blood of Christ is completely figurative. That's why one needs to be schooled in the religion. It's not meant to be actual, it's wine. It's just a way to take Christ into you, to be filled with Christ. I understand that you're trying to make a point that the visualization may be considered somewhat violent. But you didn't really have the concept. Think, it may be the yin/yang concept, how can one really know good without evil, tranquility without violence, etc.
However, I defy you to show me the good in beheading.
I understand that as a non-Catholic, it is difficult to comprehend the receiving of the true Body and Blood of Our Lord Jesus Christ, but this is a tradition that began with the Last Supper, and which has been carried on in the true Church ever since, as He gave the command to the apostles, "Do this in memory of me." The gift of transubstantiation has been handed down, through the sacrament of ordination, from Him to the apostles, and so on down through the ages to all the Catholic priests who have come since.
If one is a true Christian, this should not be a strange or abhorrent concept - Jesus has told us in the Gospels, in addition to the words spoken by Him at the Last Supper, that His Flesh is true food, and His Blood is true drink, and also that He who eats this Flesh and drinks this Blood shall have eternal life. There really isn't any clearer indication of His intentions for the posterity of His Church than His own words, bluntly stated. That very declaration was the cause of many of His followers walking away from Him that day, because they couldn't understand it either.
Hi, conserv13...do you know, offhand, what the cutting of the children's heads represent? Just arose from my nap. I can Google it but if you have any quick links or something, I'd appreciate a tutorial. (still stretching and yawning and then I open FR with these images...they are waking me up quickly!)