All worship involves sacrifice. Human sacrifice has a type of rationality behind it; you give that which is most precious and valuable to your god. It’s even more reasonable when you think of your god as a hostile or indifferent being that you must placate or bribe.
As a Catholic, my God wants the following sacrifices: first, things which I think are more important than Him. Second, things which are bad for me (of which the first is a subset). Third, to love as He loves. And fourth, to accept and offer up pain as a form of substitutionary atonement, as He did on the Cross.
The difference here is that the sharp pointy end indicates a blood sacrifice–which may not be as hard or painful as the sacrifices you enumerate, but is a bit more, ummm, physically painful? Permanent?
Reading that I just keep thing “Do you even know how to use one of those?” “The sharp pointy end goes in the other person.” (or something along those lines from the one Zorro movie)
Human sacrifice is also a great way to deal with trouble makers. Joe is bad mouthing the high priest, hey you know what we need to kill someone to appease the gods.
Human sacrifice is not always inflicted on a victim. There is evidence that some went willingly either for the honor and benefits granted (sometime to family left behind) to the the one offering themselves, while others did so because they believed it was for the greater good. We even have modern examples of this in the Kamikaze pilots of WWII (the pilots were raised to the status of samurai for their sacrifice, which granted status to the family they left behind) and sadly suicide bombers, some of whom are after the promise their religion makes of status in their afterlife. I intend neither to condone nor condemn these choices, only to point out they exist as examples of human sacrifice choosen by the one who will die.
There were also more ambiguous cases, such as the sacrifices sometimes made at the pitz (Mayan ballgame), possibly of the winners or losers. Which, assuming that playing was not forced (say, by war captives) means that, on some level, they chose to risk sacrifice.
Ooh…ancient South Americans DOES kinda = sacrifices…
All worship involves sacrifice. Human sacrifice has a type of rationality behind it; you give that which is most precious and valuable to your god. It’s even more reasonable when you think of your god as a hostile or indifferent being that you must placate or bribe.
As a Catholic, my God wants the following sacrifices: first, things which I think are more important than Him. Second, things which are bad for me (of which the first is a subset). Third, to love as He loves. And fourth, to accept and offer up pain as a form of substitutionary atonement, as He did on the Cross.
The difference here is that the sharp pointy end indicates a blood sacrifice–which may not be as hard or painful as the sacrifices you enumerate, but is a bit more, ummm, physically painful? Permanent?
Reading that I just keep thing “Do you even know how to use one of those?” “The sharp pointy end goes in the other person.” (or something along those lines from the one Zorro movie)
Antonio Banderas talking to Anthony Hopkins in ‘The Mask of Zorro’
of course, when you offer human sacrifice, it’s not YOU. It’s somebody else who may not be as enthusiastic about it as you are.
Seems awful short to be a weapon in the classic sense…
However as a sacrificial implement, it wouldn’t need to be that big…
Depending on the point of entry, it’s easily long enough to cause fatal injury.
Human sacrifice is also a great way to deal with trouble makers. Joe is bad mouthing the high priest, hey you know what we need to kill someone to appease the gods.
I never said any of those things. Clearly the high priest is a liar and a fraud.
I wish I had a nickel for every time some earthling told me that we need to kill someone to appease the gods.
Rich, I would be.
While living sacrifices comes up in this story often in various ways; this could be used for a simple bloodletting sacrifice instead. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bloodletting_in_Mesoamerica
Mayan kings supposedly bled themselves during each major political event.
Some sects of christians have (and do) too.
1 Kings 18 has the prophets of Baal doing this in their ecstatic dancing.
Human sacrifice is not always inflicted on a victim. There is evidence that some went willingly either for the honor and benefits granted (sometime to family left behind) to the the one offering themselves, while others did so because they believed it was for the greater good. We even have modern examples of this in the Kamikaze pilots of WWII (the pilots were raised to the status of samurai for their sacrifice, which granted status to the family they left behind) and sadly suicide bombers, some of whom are after the promise their religion makes of status in their afterlife. I intend neither to condone nor condemn these choices, only to point out they exist as examples of human sacrifice choosen by the one who will die.
There were also more ambiguous cases, such as the sacrifices sometimes made at the pitz (Mayan ballgame), possibly of the winners or losers. Which, assuming that playing was not forced (say, by war captives) means that, on some level, they chose to risk sacrifice.