Cut your penis off?! Filipino Cuts Off Penis in Fit of Religious Fervor BACOLOD, Philippines (Reuters) - A 32-year-old Filipino farmer who believed his penis was driving him to sin sliced it off with a machete in a fit of religious fervor, family members and doctors said on Friday. Relatives said they found the former security guard lying on the floor, covered in blood and with a portion of his penis missing when they went to his hut on Negros island in the southern Philippines on Monday. ``He is a good son, and one of seven children, He indulged himself by reading the Bible,'' his mother told reporters in Bacolod City 306 miles south of Manila, where the man is now in hospital. ``His act was probably triggered by the book of Matthew 18:8,'' she said. The verse, from the New Testament, reads ``If your hand or your foot causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away. It is better for you to enter life maimed or crippled than to have two hands or two feet and be thrown into eternal fire.'' Family members said they rushed the man to a nearby hospital in Bacolod where doctors said they had stitched up and reconstructed his penis, although it is now 20 percent shorter. Relatives said they were unable to find the severed portion. Doctors said the man's penis showed several wounds, indicating that the man had hacked at it several times before it detached. ``The mere act of cutting his penis signifies that he is psychotic,'' the doctor said, but did not indicate whether the man would undergo psychiatric evaluation. He is now in stable condition and his wounds were expected to heal in two and a half weeks, doctors said. The man will still be able to have children, the doctor added. The man's mother said her son had been depressed and obsessed with the Bible since his wife moved to Manila to work as a housemaid, leaving their young child to live with her family. ``He said he wanted to be nailed to a coconut tree,'' the man's mother said. ``He had memorized the Bible and preaches with the pastors in our place. ``He also advised other people to remove nude photos from their walls so that small children will not become sex maniacs later,'' the mother said. Today newspaper quoted the man as saying he had no regrets about cutting off his penis because it was driving him to sin. Local radio and newspaper reports said the man had visualized his penis as a ``cobra'' drawing him toward women. Hey me too! Filipino farmer Roland Magsipoc, 32, rests after having an operation to stitch up and reconstruct his penis at a provincial hospital in Bacolod city, 306 miles south of Manila December 6, 2001. Magsipoc, who believed his penis was driving him to sin, sliced it off with a machete in a fit of religious fervor, family members and doctors said. (Chrysee Samillano/Reuters)
Hands and Feet are used as examples. Its basically saying that if anything is causing you to sin, then its better cast it aside.
You know I wouldn't go so far as that, but I do understand where the guy is coming from. If you have ever thought about how sinful we humans ALL are, you will certainly have felt the need to somehow remove sin from your life. I have felt all along that most sin begins with the eyes, and have at times envied the blind who don't have to deal with the burden. Luckily, Jesus Christ, according to the bible, [my disclaimer - I don't want another unfruitful Bible thread] has saved man from sin on the cross.
i guess. if you believe in sin. who's to say what sin is? a few stories from the bible? a work of fiction written thousands of years ago? i don't buy into it. rH
I know what I feel is sin FOR ME. You must decide for yourself what sin is for you. If you feel you don't sin, fine. If you do, fine. As the bible says, take up YOUR cross and bear it. [Paraphrase mine]
You can cut off everything and still sin. His ding-a-ling wasn't causing him to sin. It was his mind. Let's see him cut that out.
If the Bible said so then NO! But if the Quran said so, then still NO! Dreamer, some peoples ding-a-ling have a mind of their own you know?
kbm -- wish you didn't feel it necessary to put a disclaimer by the statement that Christ saved you from your sin. i've thought about this very verse before and how it would apply. the example here is the extreme example i came up with. what Christ was saying, I think, was simply that if something causes you to sin and separate from God, then you should get rid of it. it's like paul talking about eating meat...when speaking to others who lived in areas where it was part of idol worship he said if it causes you to sin or others to stumble you shouldn't do it..but the meat in and of itself is not sinful. i'm not about to cut of my...you know...but what if the Bible is right?? what if he was struggling with lust, p*rnography, sex outside of marriage, etc and that was keeping him from growing closer to God?? then it seems like he's not such a madman...it all depends on whether your perspective is earth-bound or eternal. which i guess depends on whether or not you believe the claims of Christ.
As much as I'm in shock after reading this, I can't help but feel a bit of admiration for the guy. It takes some conviction to do what he did. Hope his wanker feels better.
Yeah, it's not his shlong that causes him to feel the things he does, it's his mind...right on, DREAMer.
DREAMer summed up in two sentences what I spent 20 minutes writing, but here it is: Oh for Pete's sake. Jesus did not literally mean for a person to cut off an appendage involved in sinful behavior. He was speaking ironically to draw a distinction between how a Christian would act if they applied the contemporary legal, worldly logic of the Pharisees to their behavior and how God would want a Christian to act if he were truly attempting to stop his sinful behavior. In Matthew chapter 5, the sermon on the mount, Jesus says, "Anyone who breaks one of the least of (the) commandments and teaches others to do the same will be called least in the kingdom of heaven, but whoever practices and teaches these commands will be called great in the kingdom of heaven. For I tell you that unless your righteousness surpasses that of the Pharisees and the teachers of the law, you will certainly not enter the kingdom of heaven." (Matthew 5:20) Here, he's saying that the Pharisees and other legal representatives may make the law on Earth, but playing by their rules is not going to get you into Heaven. Later, to illustrate the absurdity of trying to please God by settling for man's legal interpretation of atonement, Jesus says, "If your right eye causes you to sin, gouge it out and throw it away. It is better for you to lose one part of your body than for your whole body to be thrown into hell. And if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away. It is better for you to lose one part of your body than for your whole body to go into hell." (Matthew 5:30) After all, in these scenarios, your hand and your eye have committed sinful behaviors; they should be treated as culprits and removed, right? Wrong. If your hand causes you to sin and you remove it, are you in any way cured of the desire to sin? Not necessarily. Man is sinful by nature; he harbors sinfulness in his heart. It is our desire to behave in a sinful way that is at issue here. Jesus is saying that if you approach matters as the Pharisees would, through simplistic logic and narrowly-defined punishments, then cutting off a hand or an eye is all the solution that sinful behavior requires. If you wish to enter the Kingdom of Heaven, however, you have to make certain that "your righteousness surpasses that of the Pharisees and the teachers of the law". To do so, you must work to be free of sinful desires in your heart. This idiot that cut off his pecker did some serious misinterpreting of the Bible.
There have been many saints and other "holy people" who have done similar things based upon misreadings or literal readings, etc. About 1000 years ago, this man would have been declared a very holy man and would probably be asked to pray for people (with the understanding that he is closer due to lack of sin). Amazing how time changes everything, isn't it. PS - keep in mind that the Phillipines were a converted tribal culture, meaning that their adaptations of Christianity will be more mystical and more literal. An example of something similar occurred with missionaries in Latin America. They had to diminish the symbolism of the cricifix (and crucifixion) because the "natives" were taking it literally and having themselves crucified, or crucifying others to get closer to god, to fulfill the ritual. Latin America also retains more mystical elements today.
I just reread the article. How? The man completely severed 20% of his penis (which his family never found) and it still is able to function. I'm no doctor, but wouldn't he have no feeling in the part the doctor's reconstructed? Maybe I'm thinking about it too much.
While I commend his faith in God & agree with BK's interpretation of the biblical verse, I find it inexcusable that he didn't check to make sure the knife was sharp enough to cut it off the first time. He must've really wanted to suffer.
the doctors, durin surgery, need to make sure this guy WILL NOT breed. his genes do not need to be past on...
Hey! I wonder if this guy will get a Darwin award...? Many scholars believe the first great theologian, Origen, force-castrated himself.
