Well, if you read the bible there are many edicts against self mutilation.
In the Jewish faith, as well as the Catholic Faith, tattoos are highly frowned upon.
Not that too many people take their religion all that seriously.
You shall not make any gashes in your flesh for the dead or tattoo any marks upon you: I am the Lord. (NRSV, Leviticus 19:28)
Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, which you have from God, and that you are not your own? For you were bought with a price; therefore glorify God in your body. (NRSV, 1 Corinthians 6:19-20)
Who can forget the blooper in Martin Scorcese’s “masterwork” “The Last Temptation of Christ,” that had Mary Magdalene covered in facial tattoos, lol! I can still remember my friend Agnes and I crying out: “Oh, no! That’s so wrong!”
Thank you so much for those passages.
My wife was irate at her daughter for getting a tattoo last month; now she is really irate because it turns out the daughter spent the rent money on the tattoo and just got an eviction notice. Really, really stupid thing to do with five little kids in the house. We found out about all this through a third party who had read the daughter's Facebook postings (do something really stupid and then post on Facebook about it).
I have tattoos, I’m going to Hell?