Pope John Paul II self-flagellated to get closer to Jesus

[afleitch]

Actually a not uncommon religious devotion that has been practice for nearly 2,000 years in Christianity and with roots in Judaism.   It is also practiced in Islam.

That aside it's not something that anyone should be driven to do. But thats the thing with organised religion; it 'gets away' with practices that if they were not done for religious purposes would see some (usually psychiatric) intervention; self harming, speaking gibberish and thrashing on the floor, voices in your head telling you what to do and how to think, genital mutilation and so on. Even standing on a street shouting at people. If any of these took place without a religious 'excuse' you'd be hauled away...

[afleitch]

I'm pretty sure I've seen people shouting things in the street unrelated to religion and they were not hauled away.  I see non religious "self harming" all the time.  It's called a tattoo parlor.  Lots of people have voices in their head telling them what to do, you can call it "inner voice" or "internal monologue".  I'd guess most dudes with a Prince Albert are non religious.  I'll give you gibberish/tongues though (although some drugs can get you pretty close).

I pretty much implied everyone was capabeble of doing the above; I was saying that there is little 'intervention' if you do it and say 'ah but my God says...' with the exception of things that are blatantly OTT like violence or crime.

You can get aways with a lot of things if you wrap it up as religiously inspired. Ask the $cientologists.

[afleitch]

Bodily harm, yes. But harm in the broad sense?

Err..bodily harm? mental suffering as a the result of phsyical pain ? It's not difficult to grasp.