The title of this post is something I've said more than a few times about the religion I was born into.  I've also used the label Marian Cultic to describe the Filipino brand of Roman Catholicism.  As you can guess, the religion of my parents' homeland is not something I talk about in the most glowing terms.  (Not that I dismiss Christianity entirely: anything that can inspire something like this or this can't be all bad... I think...?)  One of the reasons comes from one of the (very few) memories I have of my early childhood in the Philippines: seeing a man crucified.

I've described this before to some people and many dismiss it as me misremembering or stretching the truth... but it is indeed the case that people volunteer to get themselves flogged, walk a few miles with a cross on their back, then get themselves nailed (not roped, nailed) up in the hot tropical sun for a while.  Obviously it's meant to just be a temporary crucifixion, but sometimes things go wrong.

I was reminded of this when I arrived at my parents' home on the other side of the country and decided that I needed to do a little bit of reading before going to bed.  The first thing I see is a random issue of National Geographic which I open up to a random page, to be immediately greeted by: a picture of a crucifixion.

If you'd like to see more, here's a video showing that the practice is alive and well.

Merry Christmas.