For decades, tattoos and body piercings have been one of the most controversial concerns among religion such as Christians. According to a statement made by the Lutheran Church (Missouri Synod) in their website, they declare “The Synod has no position on this subject. It should be kept in mind that the prohibition in Leviticus 19:28 ...

For Christians, matters such as this lie in the area of Christian freedom and wise judgment” However, for cultures and societies this controversy has become a more accepted issue because of the behaviour and the lifestyle of new generations.It is known that Indians, natives and warriors all around the world have used body painting for a long time. But according to Jennifer Viegas, in her article for Discovery news - Discovery Channel, tattoos date from 5300 B.C.

based on the discover in 1991 of Otzi “the iceman”, who died frozen and was found in the Similaun Glacier of the Alps. Moreover, Professor Maria Anna Pabst from the Institute of Cell Biology at the Medical University of Graz and some colleagues analysed several of Otzi’s tattoos. They concluded that there were “groups of..

. tattoo lines parallel to the longitudinal axis of the body, and so they’re parallel to Chinese acupuncture meridians”. This seems to show one of the ends of using tattoos beyond the look or the appearance of the people in the pass.Body piercings, on the other hand, seem to be less ancient than tattoos, but they are still as ancients.

Based on anthropologist discovers, a mummy from about 5000 years ago was found wearing earrings. However, “Nose piercing is documented as far back as 1500 BC”.Tattoos and Body piercings have had many different stages across history, from tribes’ traditions and war adornments to mark of undesirable societies (in the case of Jewish people during the Nazi revolution) and prisoners; from rebel behaviour to a particular lifestyle such as hippies. Nevertheless, these traditions, lifestyles or any other term used to describe the use of these adornments have been criticised by societies and religions. According to (Kalra) in their script, they mention, “religion is a strong modifier of social behavior in many cultures”.

It means that most of the societies’ behavior’s control policies are made on the predominant religion of each society.According to Bock, Cochran and Beeghley (Koch, Roberts, Armstrong and Owens, 2004), the religious beliefs seem to have a strong influence over the society in relation to the use of tattoos when the express that “Religiosity influences behavior as individual identity with the norms and values of the religious subculture to wish they belong”.Armstrong (Journal of Environmental Health, 2005), in addition, wrote an article in which is exposed some US’s regulations in relation to tattoos, body piercings and permanent cosmetics. Even when she concluded that “it is unrealistic, given the amount of body art performed in the United States, to prohibit body art…” this is still an example of how for some societies, no matter the religions or traditions, see these adornments as an issues.

Koch, Roberts, Armstrong and Owens (2004) in one of their studies affirmed that religious and nonreligious individuals were equally likely to have, be interested or having the will of getting tattoos and body piercings. This study was made over a sample of 450 students random selected on the southwest of the US.However, it seems not to be clear evidences for correlations of religions belief and society practice with interest in tattoos and body piercings. It was also found that in previous researches, including the already cited, the authors tried to find a relation between the use of tattoos and body piercings and the religious and socio-cultural position towards these adornments among local students and some states within the US. All these research were used by the author as base for this investigation given the relation they have with this work.This found gave the opportunity to focus this study on the internationals students at Navitas English, Brisbane and study how the religious and cultural factors affect the society's attitude with regards to people with tattoos and body piercing.