Ancient Carthaginians did sacrifice their children (2014)

> Child sacrifice hooks into some very deep and dark aspects of human psychology that we have yet to unpack.

Maybe not. Humans first do something practical, and then use rituals and tradition to justify it.

Here's an alternative scenario:

In an age where abortion had a higher chance of killing the woman than childbirth, this was the only practical abortion.

It's only after the fact that it gets justified as a sacrifice demanded by the gods.

And once the practice is accepted, the next step is to forcefully sacrifice the children of your political enemies, i.e. the woman is not making the choice here.

> There is a trove of independent historic stories and tales about child sacrifice in Carthage from Plutarch, Plato and even the Bible.

So? Historic stories and tales from a time when those things weren't written down but handed orally from generation to generation are generally far removed from the truth.

After all, even in an age where almost everything is written down we still battle to separate baseless accusations from substantiated facts.

>Huh? It is quite easy to understand for me.

Imagine if someone came up to you tomorrow and said "God talked to me and told me I also need to sacrifice my child." You'd assume they were crazy, hopefully to the point of calling the authorities.

It's impossible to look at that story from a modern context and think Abraham's actions are remotely right or rational. Why would anyone trust a god who does that? But if child sacrifices are a somewhat common thing, Yahwe looks like the good god who doesn't actually make you kill your kid, just asks that you're willing to kill your kid.

That's a fine skeptical attitude, but to put it into practice you'd have to be familiar with the relevant scholarship, read the paper, independently verify its arguments and claims, and come to an informed conclusion. You'd also have to be familiar with the standards of evidence used in the relevant fields, which aren't the same as the standards of evidence used in the hard sciences—they can't be because it's largely impossible to carry out experiments and there is a paucity of available evidence.

It's mostly abduction—the best explanation for the available evidence—which wouldn't fly in the hard sciences, but it's all that's available to archeologists and ancient historians. If your heuristic is "hard proof or bullshit," you'll inevitably reject everything that comes out of these fields. (also, history isn't any sort of science, soft or otherwise; it's a branch of the humanities).

> It is interesting that civilizations have engaged in ritual sacrifice. The question is why?

A few thoughts:

- Sacrifice and civilization are closely related. To live in a society you have to sacrifice some autonomy, some of your (and your family's) goals and some resources. Further, to prepare for the future you have to make a sacrifice in the present. Many people even sacrifice their present selves for their future (not born yet) offspring. It is only logical (if a bit esoteric) then, to think that making a bigger sacrifice will transmute into bigger positives.

- Christianity (not that familiar with Judaism or Islam) was revolutionary because Jesus already made the ultimate sacrifice, essentially freeing everyone from the obligation.

- If one takes a sober view, the history of ritual sacrifices has not ended (and probably never will). Mao was willing to sacrifice millions to bring about Communism (read: Paradise / heaven on earth). Similarly for the Bolsheviks, Nazis, Red Khmer, Robespierre etc. They all explicitly stated in their own writing that the deaths were a worthwhile sacrifice. That is the psychopathic variant of ritual sacrifice, slaughtering a goat to Zeus looks a lot more tame and rational in comparison, no?