Body Piercings/Tatooes in Church? (atheism, bible, God, Christian)

[BudinAk]

What do you all think about the trend of some nowadays: showing up in church with pins, rings, and stuff stuck through their eyebrows, nose, lips, tongue, etc? Or, with BIG tatooes all over the place? I work in a large prison, and the inmates for the most part are VERY proud to tatoo themselves all over...and the more the better. Some even do the face and top/back of the head with the most grotesque/shocking scenes imagineable...I've pretty much seen it all. One guy plucked out all his eyebrows, then tatooed permanent ones in their place: BLUE! (Yech!) And...I've even seen one big church leader/pastor (he's on the internet...has a big website) getting into this body piercing thing...
Why do people want to do permanent stuff to their bodies...that they can't UNDO? The whole idea is revolting to me...I guess I am just old-fashioned....

Bud

[dreameyes]

We are told in the Bible that that our body is a temple and that we should not defile it. IMO that would include tatooing and piercings to an extreme. Now ofcourse everyone is not a Christian. Even if you arn't I don't understand why someone would want to put permanent markings on themselves. Young stupid teenagers often do this and then change later in life and regret it.

[SmerkyGrl]

The times are a-changing

[MontanaGuy]

I think some of these young people are really going to regret these elaborate tatoos when they get older. At least with a piercing you can take it out and heal up but it costs a fortune to remove a tatoo and certain colors are more difficult than others to get rid of. I'm glad that wasn't popular when I was younger. I'd probably have a tiger or some multicolored monstrosity across my back.

[pladecalvo]

There is a Spanish girl in our village that looks as if she has been fired from a canon, face first into a box of nails. The strangest thing is, without all the scrap metal on her face, she really would be a very attractive girl but she seems to go out of her way to make herself as unattractive as possible.....but what do us old gits know anyway. I suppose they would laugh if they saw us in 'drainpipe trousers' and 'brothel creepers'.

[kaykay]

My son, who was a Christian, always wanted to get tatooes and body piercings. He always liked that kinda "edgy" look. Needless to say, his dad and I were not that into it. He knew he would have to wait till he was out of our house to get tatooed or pierced!

There is actually a scripture in the Old Testament about not making markings on your body (which some interpret to mean tatooes) Am I even spelling "tatooes" right? or is the plural "tatoos"?? Well, anyway, that would be under Old Testament law anyway. (let's not go to that thread/argument again, OK?)

My son did have a Christian t-shirt that said on the front, "Body-piercing saved my life!" Then on the back of the shirt, it showed a cross and had the scripture about Jesus that says "He was pierced for our transgressions..."

I do think that "edgy" look that my son was so anamored with sometimes gives the wrong impression to the older set. Aaron, again was a Christian young man with a heart of gold, but I think sometimes his "edgy" appearance was offputting, shall we say, to some.

But, as smerkygrl, said, the times they are a-changin'

[stretch00]

I too shake my head and wonder what people are thinking when I see some piercings and tattoos.

My personal dislike is people who pierce their ears and then gradually increase the size of the piercing until they can fit grommets, etc in it, bascially creating a 1/2" or larger hold in their earlobe.

Once they stop wearing the spacer, they just have weird flappy earlobes with a huge hole in it. Not attractive, and probably difficult to fix with plastic surgery.

Just weird.

[kaykay]

Originally Posted by stretch00

I too shake my head and wonder what people are thinking when I see some piercings and tattoos.

My personal dislike is people who pierce their ears and then gradually increase the size of the piercing until they can fit grommets, etc in it, bascially creating a 1/2" or larger hold in their earlobe.

Once they stop wearing the spacer, they just have weird flappy earlobes with a huge hole in it. Not attractive, and probably difficult to fix with plastic surgery.

Just weird.

I'm so "out of it." I didn't even understand what a "spacer" was till you just explained it. I heard people talk about them!

[Twinkle Toes]

I believe that we are not supposed to defile our bodies with tattoos, markings or piercings. The old testament talks about this quite a bit. The New testament tells us to "glorify God with our bodies". However, I believe that in glorifying him with our bodies, that means we are commanded not only not to get tattoos or piercings, but to take care of our bodies as well. No smoking, drugs, excessive drinking, obesity, lack of exercise which allows our bodies to deteriorate. Of course a person with any of these conditions can still be a Christian, as we are all sinners regardless of whether we have markings or not. It doesn't bother me in the least to see people in church with tattoos or piercings. Church is probably the best place they could be! It's not up to us to judge what's in anyone's heart. BTW, I have pierced ears.

[stretch00]

Originally Posted by kaykay

I'm so "out of it." I didn't even understand what a "spacer" was till you just explained it. I heard people talk about them!

Sigh. After all my posts on evolution, logic, atheism and stuff, the one thing that a christian takes away from my discussions is a description of a spacer.

Well, you have to start somewhere....

Glad I could help.

On a more thread oriented note, I do tend to think pretty conservatively about dress. If you are going to go to someplace where formality is expected (court, church, job interviews), you should dress appropriately. Not necessarily suit and tie, but no baseball hats, no midriff shirts showing back tattoos, all that other stuff.