Animal Sacrifices - are they ever ok?

[beenherebeforeagain]

so...sacrifice to atone for sin doesn't count?
that's a lot of dead animals....unaccounted for

Really? Sacrifices of thanksgiving don't count for you? Sacrifices in honor of visitors, or deeds, or marriages, or funerals, or...well, you get the picture, I'm sure... don't count? EVERY sacrifice, or at least 51 percent of them, have to be about atonement for sin to make you happy? A concept that may not have played much of a role in many cultures; certainly, there may be sacrifices to atone for wrongdoing, but wrongdoing is not necessarily (and as I understand it, in most historical cultures, not at all) sin. Sin seems to be mostly a product of the J-C monotheism, and not relevant in most other systems.

 

[Smart_Guy]

Ah, shouldn't "why the action is done" be more important than what the nature of the action (i.e. the sacrifice) is?

 

[Rick O'Shez]

God hasn't insisted on bean diet that I know of
and He gave me the teeth

Apparently we originally developed colour vision so we could tell when berries were ripe.

 

[Monk Of Reason]

Normally I'd say no but we kill animals all the time for a lot less.

 

[Smart_Guy]

But in most cases the why doesn't outweigh the action.

Yes, I agree

 

[Riverwolf]

so...sacrifice to atone for sin doesn't count?
that's a lot of dead animals....unaccounted for

No, that's not what I said.

I'm saying that you're thinking far too much within the context of ritual animal sacrifice within the context of the Torah accounts. Step out of that context, and consider other reasons others might practice this, and in what forms. It's going to look very different from place to place.

As far as I can tell, pre-Christian European cultures didn't really have the concept of "atonement with the Gods". We ritually sacrificed animals in some kind of celebration, shared part of it with the participating wights (whether Gods, Elves, or whatever else), and ate the rest of it.

That's just one pan-culture from a relatively small and historically backwater part of the world. Notice how different our context was from ancient Hebrew or modern Kosher practices, and then consider how different it would be across the entire world wherever it appears (because far as I can tell, it's hardly a historically universal practice).

 

[Thief]

No, that's not what I said.

I'm saying that you're thinking far too much within the context of ritual animal sacrifice within the context of the Torah accounts. Step out of that context, and consider other reasons others might practice this, and in what forms. It's going to look very different from place to place.

As far as I can tell, pre-Christian European cultures didn't really have the concept of "atonement with the Gods". We ritually sacrificed animals in some kind of celebration, shared part of it with the participating wights (whether Gods, Elves, or whatever else), and ate the rest of it.

That's just one pan-culture from a relatively small and historically backwater part of the world. Notice how different our context was from ancient Hebrew or modern Kosher practices, and then consider how different it would be across the entire world wherever it appears (because far as I can tell, it's hardly a historically universal practice).

I recall, someone came asking....and he brought a goat to Moses..
hands were laid upon the man....and then unto the animal
then someone 'suitable' took to animal into the wilderness....staked it to the ground and left it to die

the sin was transferred
the goat is a scapegoat

you read it differently?

 

[beenherebeforeagain]

I recall, someone came asking....and he brought a goat to Moses..
hands were laid upon the man....and then unto the animal
then someone 'suitable' took to animal into the wilderness....staked it to the ground and left it to die

the sin was transferred
the goat is a scapegoat

you read it differently?

And that would be....a story from the Abrahamic tradition.
We understand that in the Abrahamic faiths there is almost an obsessive consideration of sin and how to atone for it, and so on, so we understand the idea of the scapegoat. However, there are other traditions in existence, as I, @Riverwolf , and others have pointed, in which animals are sacrificed for reasons other than absolving sins.

 

[metis]

Such rituals are often taught as being an "outward manifestation of an inward process". IOW, the issue of sin and forgiveness can and should be viewed as a reminder that we should obviously try not to sin, plus that when we do sin we need to make atonement for that both to whom we may have hurt and also to God.

In Judaism, if I hurt you, whether I was intending to or not, I first need to mend my relationship with you before turning to God for forgiveness. If I don't do that, then our sages have said that God may not forgive me.

 

[Princeps Eugenius]

Just a brief question. Obviously some religious preach crazy and even human sacrifice, while other like to cut off chicken heads. But, what about like sacrificing a goldfish? Your opinion?

depends why you do it. and whether you have an abundance of the sacrificial material or whether it is very sparce.

 

[Princeps Eugenius]

Why do you think the scarcity changes the moral argument?

i dont think its as much a problem if you sacrifice a (wine, bread, cheese) chicken/pig/sheep/cow instead of a dodo. because of the former one eats it in abundance anyway in the latter it would be at the point of extinction. Perhaps the sacrifice would be more unusual by it, but it would be very wrong to do it anyhow.

 

[whereismynotecard]

To murder anything as a "sacrifice" is needless and cruel. The only sacrifice I would approve of would be a non-religious one - as in sacrificing your neighbor to the zombies to save yourself. There's got to be something good to come of it or else it's just needless killing.

 

[Princeps Eugenius]

To murder anything as a "sacrifice" is needless and cruel. The only sacrifice I would approve of would be a non-religious one - as in sacrificing your neighbor to the zombies to save yourself. There's got to be something good to come of it or else it's just needless killing.

people ate the meat. the sacrifice were just prayers before starting the barbeque parties of eating meat and drinking alcohol.

 

[psychoslice]

For me, to murder animals for such things as sacrifice in this day and age is completely ignorance, there is only one true sacrifice, and that is of ourselves, we need to sacrifice our carnal self, as to reach our higher self, animal sacrifice belongs in the dark past of ignorance, not in this day and age.

 

[whereismynotecard]

people ate the meat. the sacrifice were just prayers before starting the barbeque parties of eating meat and drinking alcohol.

I was referring to the original post, which I thought implied that people were killing animals just to please their gods and with no real reason. Killing another animal in order to eat it is okay to me, so long as you kill it quickly and as painlessly as possible. If it's some elaborate sacrifice where the animal is in prolonged suffering, it's still wrong, no matter if it's eaten afterward or not. Killing things is pretty brutal, but it's the cultural norm for most people to eat meat, and it's a natural thing that many animals do, so as long as the execution is quick and it's being killed for a good reason - for other animals to consume it for instance, I can understand it.

 

[Princeps Eugenius]

I was referring to the original post, which I thought implied that people were killing animals just to please their gods and with no real reason. Killing another animal in order to eat it is okay to me, so long as you kill it quickly and as painlessly as possible. If it's some elaborate sacrifice where the animal is in prolonged suffering, it's still wrong, no matter if it's eaten afterward or not. Killing things is pretty brutal, but it's the cultural norm for most people to eat meat, and it's a natural thing that many animals do, so as long as the execution is quick and it's being killed for a good reason - for other animals to consume it for instance, I can understand it.

Animal sacrifices were rare. Because cattle and animals were very expensive back then. Just the wealthy could afford to eat meat weekly. Only on special occasions (such as religious festivals) would one, who is poor/underclass/peasant, eat meat. Most of the times people sacrificed bread, wine, throw a hand-full of unprocessed cereal into a fire etc.

 

[Sees]

For me, to murder animals for such things as sacrifice in this day and age is completely ignorance, there is only one true sacrifice, and that is of ourselves, we need to sacrifice our carnal self, as to reach our higher self, animal sacrifice belongs in the dark past of ignorance, not in this day and age.

Or...synchronize all aspects of your self and throw in some sacrifices now and then to be as awesome as I am...

 

[whereismynotecard]

Animal sacrifices were rare. Because cattle and animals were very expensive back then. Just the wealthy could afford to eat meat weekly. Only on special occasions (such as religious festivals) would one, who is poor/underclass/peasant, eat meat. Most of the times people sacrificed bread, wine, throw a hand-full of unprocessed cereal into a fire etc.

The poor threw their cereal into a fire? That sounds kinda wasteful.

 

[Princeps Eugenius]

The poor threw their cereal into a fire? That sounds kinda wasteful.

Yep or poured a sip of wine unto the ground/into a fire. many people still do this unto this day.

 

[whereismynotecard]

Yep or poured a sip of wine unto the ground/into a fire. many people still do this unto this day.

Hmmm... The only time I ever throw food into a fire, it's marshmallows. And it's not on purpose. :'(