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AnimusRex -> RE: John Paul II used belt to whip himself (1/26/2010 2:34:30 PM)
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Lockit-
Likewise, I have no appetite for a Scriptural debate; my fight card is crowded with various Teabaggers and winguts, here and on other sites.
Further, no one should take any of my comments as an unqualified defense or apolgy for the Church, with whom I have plenty of disagreement.
However, for the record; the inflicting of pain you reference is practiced by several Catholic orders, but most notably by Opus Dei (Works of God) who featured in the Da Vinci Code. What you refer to is called corporal mortification .
This is what I alluded to in my first post. But what you won't find on the Opus Dei page describing corporal mortification is that the religious and the kinky practice voluntary suffering for many of the same reasons.
Religions- all religions- are centered around trying to make real and understandable things that are unreal and impossible to understand- we can't grasp the concept of an eternal all powerful God, and we struggle in vain for a way to express our longing, to get a tangible sense of the divine. So all religions use metaphors and allegories to help us express our deeper selves.
Religious people regularly endure fasting- which is a low level of suffering, which in turn helps them reach a deeper sense of helplessness and awareness of their own bodies. They don't call it "subspace" but it acheives a similar purpose- we accept our powerlessness in the case of the epic struggle of our lives, to come to terms with our own mortality, and failures.
Human rights groups oppopse torture because it is a violation of human diginity- the torturer has unlimited power over the victim, the ability to reach inside someone and strip them of their very person, reducing them to an object.
Does anyone think it is a coincidence that we call our clubs "Dungeons"? How many are aware that erotic crucifixion is a strong kink for many people? There is much more going on in the BDSM world than people getting their dick hard.
Some see this as blasphemous, but I see it as chasing after the same end- trying to grapple with our impossible task, which is to acheive spiritual transcendence while inside a mortal body.
P.S.
You want fucked up? We are born, live our lives in seemingly arbitrary suffering and cruelty, then die, without any way of knowing what- if anything- awaits us. THATS fucked up, and its the central question that we all grapple with all our lives.
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