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The crux of the matter: The Filipinos crucified on Good Friday

The Muslim Times has the most extensive collection on rational understanding of Easter

By Euan McKirdy, CNN

(CNN) Some devout Catholics in the deeply religious Southeast Asian nation of the Philippines will show their faith this Easter weekend with what can be deeply unsettling displays, including crucifixions and self-flagellation.

Dozens of penitents, imitating the suffering of Christ, have real nails hammered into their palms and feet, while others drag heavy crosses or crawl on bloodied hands and knees in cities and towns across the country on Good Friday.

Others, dressed as Roman centurions, aid the voluntary crucifixions, which last a few minutes before the faithful are taken down.

Penitents engage in the extreme acts to ask for luck or divine intervention, or in gratitude for previously “miraculous” help.

The tradition, which takes place every year, attracts thousands of onlookers and tourists in the fervently Catholic nation. It takes place predominantly in the Central Luzon province of Pampanga, but festivals in towns like Cutud in Barangay San Pedro, near Manila draw crowds to watch the gory displays.

Read further and watch a video in CNN

The Muslim Times’ Editor’s comments

Jesus was on the cross for 3-6 hours. He could have survived like many of these volunteers for crucifixion.  We support swoon hypothesis or claim that Jesus was resuscitated and not resurrected.  Many of our articles demonstrate this claim:

The Muslim Times has the most extensive collection on rational understanding of Easter

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    • Mr Shah – you do realise that the clip you cited is not of christians debating whether the resurrection took place. Bart Ehrman is a highly respected biblical scholar and who is also an atheist.

      You are posting this because it plays to the muslim dogma that jesus was simply a prophet which is of course a blasphemous belief to a christian.

      As an atheist I consider jesus, mohammed, god, allah, angels and flying donkeys to be utter hokum

      Can you provide me with any evidence for the

      Reply

  5. Best Answer: No such thing as flying donkey in Islam. There is a possibility that Prophet s.a.w. used a wormhole (معارج) by riding a Buraq once in the event of Isra’ and Mi’raj.

    A wormhole contracts the distance between two doorways placed separately anywhere in the universe. This isn’t really a time travel; this is just a consequence of the length contraction inside a wormhole.

    Allah gave this method of transportation to his angels throughout the universe. The Quran calls them ‘Ma’arej معارج’ and describes how angels use them for long distance travel. Today we know that these ‘Ma’arej’ is what scientists call wormholes:

    “Someone asked about the penalty that will befall the unbelievers; (A penalty) that has none to ward off; (a penalty) from Allah (who owns) wormholes [Ma’arej in Arabic]. The angels and the Spirit ascend to Him in a day, the measure of which is fifty thousand years.”

    (Quran 70.1-4)

    Any object passing through this wormhole will also experience this same time dilation (one day inside wormhole vs. 50,000 years on Earth) and not just those angels. This time dilation does not say how long it takes you to cross the wormhole, it just says that when you pass through the wormhole you age by this ratio. This space is called hyperspace (برزخ).

    God says that those wormholes are doors in the heaven that contract interstellar distances into walking distances; the resulting scenery is bizarre: God says that those who do not believe in the message will not believe it even if He showed them a bigger sign. He created beautiful towering structures in the heavens. If He opens for those nonbelievers a door in heaven and lets them continue passing through it to those distant structures, they would not believe that they really got there by simply walking few steps. Instead they would think that they are just optical illusions:

    “They do not believe the Message, like those who preceded them; Even if We [Allah] opened upon them from the heaven a door and they continued passing through it they would say ‘Our sight is bedazzled, rather we have been bewitched’. It is We [Allah] who have made towering structures in the heavens and made them beautiful for beholders. And We protected them from every evil spirit accursed.”

    (Quran 15.13-16)

    Here, they wouldn’t believe their own eyes thinking that what they see is not real. They wouldn’t believe that they got to those heavenly structures by simply walking few steps. But God insists that what they see is real and not illusions (that is, they really got there).

    The Quran says that those heavenly doors are galactic shortcuts to distant places in the universe. Maybe the angels use these doors for long distance travel. Angels can accelerate up to the speed of light for domestic travel; but they use these wormholes to reach any place in the universe even faster.

    Reply

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