On the lip stretching, it's not just the lower lip that's stretched -- the upper is often done as well, either on its own or along with the lower. Of course there are loads of other stretched piercing, most obviously the ears, nasal septum, and nostrils.

The big omission though is digit amputation -- the reason I mention this is that as far as body modification, digit amputation is the oldest one we know of, dating to 30,000 years ago and believed to be part of the birth of spirituality among humans. Digit amputation as a ritual act, often mourning related, is still a part of many indigenous cultures.

Along with circumcision by the way, you might want to mention subincision (opening the urethra along the bottom of the penis in emulation of female genitals), which is best known in Australia but is also practised extensively in Africa. Along those lines, penis inserts (piercings and implants) are popular in Borneo and around the world.

Getting into weirder territory, I watched a documentary long ago, I think about trepanation (which in a way could be included here as well), and they had a scene in which a woman showed her forearm, which had a bizarre 90 degree bend in it! They explained that as punishment for infidelity her arm had been broken and forced to heal at this angle... Rather disturbing implementation of the scarlet letter!

Anyway, fun post!

It's not THAT hard to fly a small plane by the way... if you're willing to crash land it, it's not any more complicated than stealing a car on the whole.

That's amazing... I remember seeing others made out of rock, like this one: http://www.stoneforest.com/kitchen-bath/products/view/124 but crystal is much more impressive... and expensive...

Aaron, LEGOS look like LEGOS. They may resemble pixels as well, but the first thing someone thinks when they see them is "LEGOS" and everything that the mind subconsciously associates with them... I think that while the result would look SIMILAR, done in LEGOS people would interpret the piece quite differently.

Aren't almost all of those cards fake though? I always assumed they were just miniature art projects, rather than actual glimpses of private realities...

It's not even remotely an automobile... I don't see how the law applies to it.

Grr... I guess I posted too many links. Anyway, this entry, which is about the other end of the spectrum, contains links to a few young tattoo artists (including a baby) that I wrote about back in my BME days:

http://news.bmezine.com/2006/09/10/grannys-not-cooking-in-the-kitchen-shes-tattooing/

Not the youngest -- here are a few I posted about back when I was running BME:

A baby tattoo artist: http://news.bmezine.com/2005/08/25/youngest-tattoo-artist-in-the-world/

Six year old: http://news.bmezine.com/2006/08/22/six-year-old-tattoo-artist/

Nine year old: http://news.bmezine.com/2006/08/05/nine-year-old-tattoo-artist/

And at the other end of the spectrum, a tattooing granny: http://news.bmezine.com/2006/09/10/grannys-not-cooking-in-the-kitchen-shes-tattooing/

It's mesmerizingly horrible!

Wow, that's amazing! The best Rube Goldberg machine I think I've ever seen.

YES! We should!

I'd love to see more than one sentient species (assuming we can't interbreed, which we may be able to do) on this planet. It would very many positive -- and hard to guess at -- implications I think in terms of how we perceive our place in the universe.

Hmm... my long post seems to have been auto-moderated. If a moderator is reading this, as a point of curiosity, what triggered it?

Wuh hoo, 80%, best test score yet for me.

I feel like the problem with your "side" of the discussion is that you're making the common mistake of treating atheism as just another religion. I see this a lot, and I understand that it's hard for people of faith to wrap their head around atheism because it's alien to their worldview. But there's a profound difference in not just the beliefs, but the knowledge and understanding that takes you to the conclusion.

Imagine that a person understands how an engine works. Now imagine that many years later they take a trip to a "primitive" society that has no such knowledge, and that they return espousing the idea that engines are in fact powered by magical elves (or whatever). To me, that's what converting to religion seems like. It's just completely bizarre, and while it's true that I can not prove conclusively that an engine is not powered by magical elves (since one can't prove anything absolutely), if I were to take up that belief knowing what I know, it would probably be reflective of serious cognitive and quite likely medical problems.

Anyway, if my daughter came to me and told me that she had found faith of course I would still love her. However, I would would have real worries about her thinking process and what's brought her to such a fallacy, and love would motivate me to counsel her and try and help her and try and find out why this had happened. Thankfully I say with some certainty that she knows better, but if I turn out to be wrong -- I've certainly gone through teenage phases where i've believed goofy things -- it will not change my love for her one bit, any more than I'd love her less if she got a bad grade on a school test, or her ability to play chess got worse.

If you are a Christian (and the same goes for the majority of faiths, although not all), then you should believe with all your might that everyone else is brutally wrong, so wrong that they deserve to be tortured in hell for all eternity simply for not believing the same thing. That is one of the core concepts. Any Christian that tells you he is open minded and accepting of other faiths is either a liar or an idiot.

And conversely, any atheist or person of rational thought that really critically looks at what religion is and what religion has done should vehemently renounce it and recognized its continued danger to our species and our planet. Tolerating something so wrong on every level is completely irrational and counter-productive to the sort of reasoned critical thought that breeds atheist views.

Of course I strongly recommend books such as "GOD IS NOT GREAT".

And DD, if someone collects stamps, that's their business and their problem and doesn't affect those around them. Religion on the other hand is arguably the single most destructive force in the entire human experience.