Blood in the streets

This picture made me stop and think, its a group of Shiite Islam believers celebrating "Ashura" in Baghdad at the end of December, you can see more alarming images and read about the history of this ritual here. It made me think and made me sad, not just because of the naked barbarity of it but because of the thought that these people have done this for a thousand years and it has not made one iota of difference to their lives, they are still relatively poor are starved of education and opportunity and are subdued, or worse persecuted by other more powerful sects and nations. All this kind of thing seems to do for them is perpetuate what I think is an oppressive and stultifying meme through the use of indoctrination, ritual and social pressure, an example of "faith" in action?

I suppose you could argue that it binds them together, a show of solidarity perhaps, but personally I can think of better and more positive ways of achieving the same thing without the abuse. Anyway, each to their own I suppose, but it made me think that if people can happily perpetrate acts of violence like this on themselves in the name of their religion then it must be a small conceptual step from here to more outward facing violence against members of out-groups or rival sects. It would seem reasonable to extrapolate a (potential) path from one to the other if faith is able to suppress reason to this extent.