Every religion has its own rituals, which miscreants find to be strange and logically inexplicable. But there are rites so weird that they can shock any sober person with their level of brutality.
No matter how tolerant the majority of the present global community is, rites such as throwing a baby off a 15-story building or ritual impalement are things that would be difficult to describe as nothing other than barbarian perversion.
As proof of the aforementioned, here are the 4 most macabre religious rites:
Throwing a baby off a 50 ft tower - India and Pakistan
For nearly 5 centuries, West India and Pakistan have had a ritual where they throw 1-year-old babies off from a 50 ft minaret. This rite is done to bring luck. The children are thrown by their own parents onto a taut sheet at the base of the tall building. The belief goes that by undergoing this ritual the child is blessed by lots of health, happiness and luck.
Impalement with sharp hooks - India
India is the country whose populace believes in the most gods. Followers of the goddess Kali perform a ritual known as Garudan Thookkam every year. They dress up like the divine companion of Kali - Garuda, and while dancing in her honor their backs are pierced by 20″ (50 cm), sharp hooks. They are then raised up and left to hang on a specially designed wooden structure. This way, Hindus believe, they are transformed into a gift for their favored deity.
Sky burials - Tibet
For orthodox Buddhists in Tibet, the body is just a shell. It is no longer needed after death. As such, for a long time the mountain region has performed the grisly practice of sky burials.
For a proper sky burial, the body of the deceased is cut up and left as food for the birds in remote areas of the mountains. Chinese authorities have prohibited this practice but if the family sends an explicit request, permission is still given to carry it out.
Possession - Tahiti
Voodoo followers believe that they are obligated to care for the spirits. To keep them strong, they commit sacrifices, which are believed to transfer the vital energy of the victim to the spirits. In the present day, they offer animals, most often birds, as sacrifice, but in the past, especially when times were tough, there have been reports of human sacrifices.
During the ceremony, the animal or person is raised up by the worshipers, all of them singing and spinning in a circle. During the dance, the shaman would cut open the throat of the victim, the blood spraying onto the believers and through them reaching the spirits.
