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Hundreds of skulls reveal massive scale of human sacrifice in Aztec capital

sciencemag.org

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Re: Hundreds of skulls reveal massive scale of human sacrifice in Aztec capital

#101

Post by DoreenMichele »

mike00632 wrote: post #87
DoreenMichele wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the west, the generally accepted public narrative is that only humans have souls, not other organisms. And whether or not it is acceptable to eat something is frequently more or less tied to intelligence. I really enjoyed your above comment. I sometimes give push back to the vegan moral superiority stance where they act like eating animals is evil, but eating plants is totally fine. I tend to view all organisms as…

" they are almost always based on the idea that plants don't have brains..." I'm afraid this is a strawman argument. Most vegans/vegetarians choose to spare other animals based on their capacity to suffer.

So they claim. But:

A. I'm an environmental studies major and anytime I present evidence that plants are aware of suffering, it is ignored and dismissed.

B. I was homeless for nearly 6 years. A so-called ethical vegan I knew (who wasn't actually a full-time vegan and ate vegetarian, not vegan, as convenience suited them) happily and enthusiastically added to my suffering during that time. Given how often ethical vegans gleefully psychologically torture their non vegan fellow humans over their failure to be vegan, I have zero reason to believe this individual's cruelty towards me was some wild aberration in the veg- community.

Please note the other comment here by someone using terms like no reason to believe, logically and a failure of analysis. The subtext of the framing celebrates this western idea that intelligence is everything.

So we can presumably agree to disagree at this point.

Re: Hundreds of skulls reveal massive scale of human sacrifice in Aztec capital

#102

Post by jcims »

scarecrowbob wrote: post #81
jcims wrote: post #63

When I see a bunch of skulls in one place like this, or in the catacombs, it makes me think of the accumulated experience of people. Not because of the brains in the skulls or whatever, but just that each skull represents a single human life. Most of the time these are adult skulls, guessing 30+ years each. That's a lot of living. I just asked google to solve a couple of problems for me. What is the current populatio…

This is kind of a neat idea. Especially, it feels like fertile ground for speculative fiction about what would happen if it were collectivizable...

Indeed!! We’re closer than we have ever been, and that trend is likely to continue.

Re: Hundreds of skulls reveal massive scale of human sacrifice in Aztec capital

#103

Post by HillaryBriss »

DoreenMichele wrote: post #49
achamayou wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can get protein from other sources than large mammals feeding on grass. In fact, they’re one of the less efficient ways to produce proteins if that’s what you are worried about.

Knowing what I know these days, a bigger reason for eating meat is that it is hard to get adequate B vitamins from a vegetarian diet. In most cases, it's not that hard to get adequate protein from a vegetarian diet. I don't remember the book very well. I read it around 30 years ago. Back then, protein was generally considered to be The Big Issue. It was the basis for Diet for a Small Planet. When the book first came…

> ... hard to get adequate B vitamins from a vegetarian diet

in particular, B12

OTOH, a quantity of other B vitamins can be made for us, in the gut, by intestinal flora as byproducts of their work on the food we've ingested. and properly prepared whole grain products can be a direct source of some b-vitamins (e.g. maize prepared with lime https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nixtamalization)

a reasonably large supply of B12 can be stored in the liver for future use by the body during lean times (perhaps multiple years' worth).

Re: Hundreds of skulls reveal massive scale of human sacrifice in Aztec capital

#104

Post by dsfyu404ed »

patrickg_zill wrote: post #92
jack9 wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's fundamentally a philosophical question. I think it's a surprisingly insightful observation.

One is to appease "the gods". The other is to protect society (and punish the evil) {as they saw it}. Quite different.

When the state structure is considered to be the status quo endorsed by the gods is capital punishment not a ritual sacrifice?

Re: Hundreds of skulls reveal massive scale of human sacrifice in Aztec capital

#106

Post by seneca »

coldtea wrote: post #13
erik_landerholm wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ahhh..the good ole days. Articles like this always speak of these acts with almost a sense of awe or reverence. Sorry, but these societies were some of the most disturbing and violent ever and I find this almost giddy excitement over human sacrifice to be very off-putting.

> were some of the most disturbing and violent ever and I find this almost giddy excitement over human sacrifice to be very off-putting. Heck, until past century the crowds gathered to watch hangings, guillotines and other executions all over Europe. And just past century the Germans burned to death 6 million Jews, gypsies, leftists, and homosexuals. Then there are the lynchings as a means of justice (in the West) an…

Executions were of condemned criminals. The Western world, and many others, mobilized to stop Nazi Germany. Lynching was an illegal act. I'm not sure those really compare to industrial scale ritual sacrifice as a cornerstone of the society.

Re: Hundreds of skulls reveal massive scale of human sacrifice in Aztec capital

#107

Post by happymandrake »

azeotropic wrote: post #18

They dismiss Cortez and his men as exaggerating the number of skulls when they claimed 130,000, but if you start calculating how many are in the image of the reconstruction in the article, it's easily close to 100,000. This reminds me of how the academic consensus was that child sacrifice in Carthage was merely Roman propaganda, until they dug up the massive infant necropolis near the temple to Moloch (yes, that Molo…

As a student of history, the amount of hate that pre-Israel civilizations get is really astounding.

Re: Hundreds of skulls reveal massive scale of human sacrifice in Aztec capital

#108

Post by reitanqild »

badminton1 wrote: post #38
throwaway43532 wrote: post #19

Despite the many issues, I'd still suggest anyone interested in the Aztec empire at the time of the Spanish conquest to read The Conquest of New Spain by Bernal Díaz del Castillo. Díaz was present not only on the Cortés expedition, but on the earlier expeditions led by Córdoba and Grijalva. The article mentions, plausibly so, that the issue of human sacrifice was often exaggerated by the Spaniards. Nevertheless, it i…

The Spanish themselves conducted many religion-motivated rituals of human sacrifice in Europe and in the Americas. In Europe, there was the Inquisition, with ritualistic torture using medieval torture devices, burning people to death, etc. Motivated by religious beliefs, just like the ones in the Americas. The Spanish also conducted campaigns of extermination. Some recent ones: the Reconcentrado policy in Cuba, and t…

> In Europe, there was the Inquisition, with ritualistic torture using medieval torture devices, burning people to death, etc. Motivated by religious beliefs, just like the ones in the Americas.

Later, during the reign of terror they killed and tortured people based on non-religious or even anti religious beliefs.

Yes, old Catholics did much wrong but can we stop this very unnuanced "religious people did it" and conclude "people with power did it"?

Re: Hundreds of skulls reveal massive scale of human sacrifice in Aztec capital

#109

Post by nradov »

mike00632 wrote: post #86
topspin wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> but more importantly start seeing animals as other beings with souls Let's stipulate that non-human animals have a "soul," whatever you believe a soul to be. How to you judge the soul of, say, a raccoon; a creature than has been called the psychopath of the animal world? A raccoon is never happier than when it's slaughtering a nest full of cute, helpless babies. Red-tailed hawks are such a menace to other species t…

Raccoons don't have the capacity for moral judgement but humans do. It doesn't make sense to think of a raccoon's actions as a part of a moral framework but it does for humans. In fact, we already do. What vegans/vegetarians are doing is extending that logic to be more consistent in our diet.

Prove to us that raccoons have no capacity for moral judgment. Those clear dividing lines between humans and other animals are in reality not supported by much evidence.

Re: Hundreds of skulls reveal massive scale of human sacrifice in Aztec capital

#110

Post by DoreenMichele »

tpeo wrote: post #66
DoreenMichele wrote: post #41

This article doesn't specifically mention cannibalism, but in my twenties I read a book that posited that "the lamb" of Christianity being a symbol of peace, as well as the Hindu reverence for the cow, were based on their ability to provide food security because they are grazers who are able to turn grass into protein. Grass is not a human food source. So this means they don't compete for the same food sources we do.…

I'd say that lambs are more associated with docility than with peace, and it's a very fair association to anyone who has ever had any contact with sheep. Animal symbolism seems to have much more to do with animal traits, animal behavior or supposed animal behavior (e.g. strength with bulls, courage with lions and altruism with the pelican) than anything else and I see no reason to break that pattern. Furthermore, if…

Well, there's this:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ichthys

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