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.
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.