Human Sacrificing

In humanity's past people would pick who would sacrifice a poor sap to the gods.It was mostly to keep the gods happy for some sick reason.And we are glad its banned today.

-claps-

Uhm... okay? What's to discuss?

In Aztec culture, being sacrificed was an honor for their best athletes.

Nowadays we don't explicitly sacrifice people, but we still accept the deaths of many (soldiers killed, criminals executed) as contributing to the well-being of society in some way.

The history and the mentality of what would drive people to sacrifice their children and kin.It would also be fun to discuss cultures that really put an emphsis on sacrifices.

Good thing we live in a society that sacrifices people in other societies, as opposed to our own. Think of how barbaric it would be to place the juggernaut of the Western capitalist system on our children's shoulders! No, it is far more humane that sweatshops and assembly plants from which we derive our relatively cheap comforts should be placed out of our sight so as not to trouble our psyches.

If you want we could get those factory jobs back in the USA.Or there would be a lot of protest anyway.

When I said sacrifices I meant take someone to a designated place to off them up as a tribute to some jerkass god.

There is the case of honoring fallen soldiers, police officers, firefighters, etc., who sacrificed themselves in the name of duty. While not explicitly set up to die, they do place themselves voluntarily in the harm's way and thus must accept death as a possibility. In that sense, duty is a kind of sacrifice.

edited 9th Sep '11 12:54:45 PM by Ratix

In what way were the gods jerkass? Do you even know what kind of group was most likely to be sacrificed? Criminals. In what way is that any different to what the USA does?

edited 9th Sep '11 12:54:54 PM by whaleofyournightmare

It's not a matter of me wanting to. It will not happen because it isn't profitable.

Well oddly enough in a large number of Meso-American civ's it was children who were sacrificed. I think this was most common with the Inca, but please don't quote me on the people as I may have gotten muddled.

The people who were sacrificed were mostly captives of war or children unfortunatly.Also there is a difference between getting justice and human sacrifice.Mostly that human sacfricing is anyone can be offered to appease the gods and the death penality is to put justice on the criminal.

Nightmare@You have not seen the Canaanite cultures becuase these guys were the definition of depravity.In those cultures it was very much children they sacrificed.

edited 9th Sep '11 12:59:24 PM by joyflower

Well, sacrificing (executing) criminals can be seen as offering them up to the gods of social stability!

Depends on the Civilization, I think the Maya mostly sacrificed Lamas instead of people, only resorting to humans when "shit just got real".

No such God exists, "social stability" is usually represented by chief gods and they tend to be a bit too powerful to need sacrifices.

edited 9th Sep '11 1:00:32 PM by JosefBugman

@Joyflower, do you know why the Canaanites sacrificed kids as I dont

Why is it okay to sacrifice a person when Yahweh tells you, but not when Quetzalcoatl does?

Because the people who believe in Yahweh have the means to defend themselves and the people who believe in Quetzalcoatl don't. Might makes right I guess.

That was a test for Abraham alone and God wasn't going to let him kill Isaac.Besides if you read in the later chapters God expilicity tells the Israelites not to sacrifice children and other humans.

I believe God knew he had no need for human sacrfice but I think it was to herald a signal that human sacrifice would not be allowed.I believe it was a combination of a signal/test.

The Canaanite gods made sure you would sacrifice for things like fertility,weather,and even good luck.

Also Quez was one of the few Aztec gods that didn't need human sacrifice.

edited 9th Sep '11 1:12:45 PM by joyflower

Human sacrificing... is bad. And?

After I grew up a bit and learned to think for myself, that part of the Bible convinced me that God, if he exists, is one helluva jerk.

I also remember before the Vikings were converted to Christianity didn't they as well sacrifice and I remember the Celts were known to sacrifice human beings as well.

edited 9th Sep '11 1:25:42 PM by joyflower

The difference with the Celts and Vikings is that they are much harder to tell apart the propaganda from the fact. They may well have done, but its more likely that they sacrificed Animals as the romans did.

The difference is that the Aztec pyramids and the various differnt "codex's" (I think thats the right term) that we still have of meso-american civilizations generally talk extensivly about sacrificing people.

The Celts rarely if ever sacrificed people, otherwise the United Kingdom would have been full of sites in which do that.

edited 9th Sep '11 1:22:18 PM by whaleofyournightmare

About the celts and sacrifice. There have been corpses discovered that imply the person was sacrificed due to starvation. That they had a form of lotto to pick that individual.

About the Mayans and sacrifice. They sacrificed for many reasons and from many groups.

edited 9th Sep '11 3:34:00 PM by TheDeadMansLife