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Are you for bringing back sacrifice in your religion?
- Thread starter Gnostic Seeker
- Start date
And why do you make that assertion?
Gnostic Seeker
Spiritual
As I understand it, the Central American cultures sacrificed humans because of a specific belief they held about the nature of existence- namely that sacrifice is what sustained the universe, and that the gods sacrificed their own bodies to sustain the cosmos. In turn, they believed humans were closest to the gods, and hence needed to be sacrificed to restore the gods. It wasn't about pleasing them I don't think, but that's the understanding I got from study. I don't agree with such a practice obviously, but there is a truth in sacrifice being the way of life.
Let me rephrase it...For I am rarely forceful and seldom confident...
You seem to be suggesting that thanksgiving, is sacrifice.
They are not the same thing.
They are however, both an offering.
One can be thankful (offering thanks, thanksgiving) that god, or gods, in your case, has provided sustenance.
This is not the same has killing an animal as an act of obesience to a god or gods.
I said similar, not the same with one exception. We'd give thanks to the Gods by offering them some of the Feast. (I say "we", but it should be known that I've never been present for any animal killed for food, ritually or otherwise.) Thanksgiving can be an aspect of it, that is to say. But instead of just turning to the King and saying "THANKS!" before digging in ourselves, the King gets the first bite.
Don't worry too much about not being forceful or confident, by the way. I may not look it sometimes, but I've got a severe lack of self-confidence, myself. ^_^
Not sure the post was directed to you, but you may be the same person.
The suggestion was that thanksgiving is sacrifice. It isn't.
"Where did I give such an impression?
I think you're stuck in the depiction of animal sacrifice in the Tanakh, rather than leaving that context entirely for ours.
Think of it like this. You know the modern Christian ritual of saying grace before a meal? Well, consider the kind of animal sacrifice we're talking about as similar to that, except taking place during the animal's slaughter. The animal slaughtered is eaten that very same day in a grand feast.
I'd wager to guess that it was only after such sacrifices that Northern Folk got to eat meat, anyway. Abundance is not the name of the Northern Game."
Are you following the conversation, or just giving me a definition of sacrifice, towards your viewpoint? Clarifying the other viewpoint?
I'm confused.
I was pretty sure I commented on the others post? As to what was posted.
So you are offering the gods some of what the gods already have and is theirs? Do they ever share the meal with you, and eat?
Thorbjorn has Thor for his avatar. I have Majora's Mask. ^_^
We're allowed to comment on posts that were directed to other people.
Check the edit.
You assume they already have it. Our Gods are not all-powerful or omnipresent.
I am not sure what check the edit means.
gsa
Well-Known Member
I am a vegetarian. My own personal belief is that vegetarianism is an ethical ideal to strive for; I strongly suspect that is true across the board. In other words, it would be better if everyone observed a vegetarian diet. So while I have no problem with ritual sacrifice of animals as compared to mass consumption of meat, I'm not wild about its revival because it is ultimately about taking a life for reasons I don't believe are necessary in the appropriate sense of that word. I don't object to killing animals when necessary nor would I compare it to a transgression like murder, but I don't think it is moral.
There are many ways to sacrifice and there are many reasons to. Most of the time within indigenous polytheism, sacrifice is a way to build relationship with the gods (fruit offerings and libations being under the category of "sacrifice")
I have no issues with animal sacrifice. This was a core aspect of Heathen practice, a way using the energies of life and death to commune very intensely with the deity in question. Our ancestors did this all the way until Christians forced them otherwise. They took the animals, treated them exceedingly well with food and luxuries, then slaughtered it on the altar swiftly. I don't see why this is such a controversy considering the animal is most of the time eaten and we do the same thing (actually, most of the time wore) to the animals grown for food.
I have no issues with animal sacrifice. This was a core aspect of Heathen practice, a way using the energies of life and death to commune very intensely with the deity in question. Our ancestors did this all the way until Christians forced them otherwise. They took the animals, treated them exceedingly well with food and luxuries, then slaughtered it on the altar swiftly. I don't see why this is such a controversy considering the animal is most of the time eaten and we do the same thing (actually, most of the time wore) to the animals grown for food.
Your opinion only.
It's an open debate forum, not a private conversation. Anyone can comment on any post and give their p.o.v.
Is that what that is!? It's been killing me trying to figure it out. If course I could have just asked.
The ultimate irony is that the very same Christians who stamped out Heathen practices and sacrifices revere one of the most gory and horrific human sacrifices in the sad history of mankind.
Most attested "human sacrifices" were almost always foreign attestations by the people's enemies. In reality they were most likely a harmless indigenous practice (most of the time second hand accounts or a first hand account seen from compromising angles and points in time) misinterpreted as a sacrifice, like the wicker man. The wicker man was a giant wooden cage in the shape of a man set ablaze with live humans inside as a sacrifice to Lugus, which is, frankly, too insane to be real (at least as attested). Possibly there was a ritual involving a priest reenacting a myth associated with a the deity in question, ending with burning a wooden statue.
Another option is that the sacrifices were really just a form of executions, where the person needed to be executed as required by their customs and while they were at it, they would use him to please the gods. This is another option for the reality of The Wicker Man sacrifices, as said by Caesar, but he never saw the rites himself.
And finally they could be just propaganda with little archaeological evidence.
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That's a great analysis. It never occurred to me. They say history is written by the victors. I'll add that it's written by those with an agenda... an agenda to stamp out indigenous societies and practices. Some of the numbers of human sacrificial victims attributed by the Spanish to the Aztecs in one day defy imagination.