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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.
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