51–60 of 322 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I am saying that the term "human sacrifice" is rarely applied to European rituals of sacrifice involving humans. You can use the term all you want, try to not use it in a biased manner. Often depictions of human sacrifice in the Americas are used to justify the exploitation of the native people of the Americas.
It sounds like you’re advocating stretching the definition of the term to support your own bias, when it has a pretty clear meaning.
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…
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.…
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.…
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.
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…
Yes, I've had similar viewpoints. I personally think tying of the soul to intelligence seems a weird distinction. Does that mean that if person goes into a vegetative state, they have lost their soul? Do animals that are less intelligent have a less likelihood of a soul? If you can breed animals without mental faculties are they soul-less? Does the fact that we can't understand if plants are intelligent meant they la…
As far as I know, other animals don't give pause over that detail. We seem to be the only animal who has this uncomfortable awareness and wrestles with it in various forms.
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…
https://www.openbible.info/topics/human_sacrifice
That they had to repeat it over and over again gives me the impression that this practice was disturbingly widespread in the ancient world.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't understand your comment. Can you explain further?
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…
Not being able to distinguish eating an orange, a chicken, a human, a human in a vegetative state etc is just a failure of analysis.
There is no moral dimension to eating an orange and we don't eat people even when their brain is irretrievably ruined out of inherent disgust,desire not to catch a disease, and moral respect for those they may have left behind.
Eating animals is legitimately complicated. We probably shouldn't do it any more
Earlier quoted context omitted.
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…
This is whataboutism, I think.
Cortez him self was quite cruel, fond of torture - either when looking for gold or enemies.
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…
> This reminds me of how the academic consensus was that child sacrifice in Carthage was merely Roman propaganda, There is really no evidence of child sacrifice at Carthage. Not sure why this myth persists but the much more plausible explanation is that (wealthy) children who died of natural causes were cremated, a very common practice in the ancient world that goes back literally 10,000 years. > Human sacrifice was…
Check out Antiquity 2012, 2014, and 2017.
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 literary reader of the bible, I noticed that there are literally one hundred different passages in the bible where God says that he absolutely does not want his followers to sacrifice children to him or condemns other religions for this practice. https://www.openbible.info/topics/human_sacrifice That they had to repeat it over and over again gives me the impression that this practice was disturbingly widespread…