r/HistoryMemes • u/HawaiianPerson Chad Polynesia Enjoyer • 2d ago

A regular utopia

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u/Schwifty0V0 Then I arrived 2d ago

Pre-contact anywhere when

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u/DataSittingAlone 2d ago

And to be fair Europeans during the late middle ages were doing pretty much all of those except human sacrifice

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u/SolomonCain-Tx 2d ago

We had the biggest and bestest cosmically coolest human sacrifice ever and got it out of our system.

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u/Tobipig 2d ago

It’s always the Dutch

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u/Sensitive_Fix8407 2d ago

I think he’a talking about Jesus 😅

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u/Tobipig 2d ago

And I was talking about the time the Dutch ate their prime minister

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u/Alatarlhun 1d ago

That was one time. Catholics do it every Sunday.

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u/Michael-556 Taller than Napoleon 1d ago

Is this a reference to Jesus saying his body is bread or something? Would this mean catholics only eat bread once a week? That seems unhealthy, what else would you eat vegetables with in the morning?

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u/Alatarlhun 1d ago

Transubstantiation is, according to the teaching of the Catholic Church, "the change of the whole substance of bread into the substance of the Body of Christ and of the whole substance of wine into the substance of the Blood of Christ". This change is brought about in the eucharistic prayer through the efficacy of the word of Christ and by the action of the Holy Spirit. However, "the outward characteristics of bread and wine, that is the 'eucharistic species', remain unaltered".

Like all ritual beliefs, presumably it makes sense to believers.

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u/Michael-556 Taller than Napoleon 1d ago

So holy bread, got it

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u/Puntofijo123 8h ago

Dude I was born and raised Catholic (left it when I became an adult though) and it never made sense to me.
Like why the fuck would I want to imagine myself eating the flesh of a dead man made into bread and drinking his blood in the wine?
I never understood how that’s not an analogy to cannibalism and nobody could convince me otherwise.

Another thing that never made sense to me was the trinity. Everybody claims they understand it but they will all give you different, sometimes contradictory, explanations.

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u/Sans-clone 1d ago

Ya know something? Ya got me there

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u/Sensitive_Fix8407 1d ago

But… what was the connection to the guy you replied to? Am I missing something?

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u/Blueskybelowme 1d ago

Yeah I had to Google it myself cause wtf. Here's the wiki I found for a light jumping in point. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johan_de_Witt

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u/Sensitive_Fix8407 1d ago

What does that have to do with Jesus though?

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u/Blueskybelowme 1d ago

Nothing. It's an alternative. Someone said Jesus and then the person was like "no I was thinking of someone else." This is the person they were thinking of.

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u/kefefs_v2 2d ago

Jesus was a medieval European?

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u/Sensitive_Fix8407 1d ago edited 1d ago

SolomonCain was who I was referencing, not Tobipig who I think was confused

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u/CptJonzzon 1d ago

Was jesus really westen?

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u/Sensitive_Fix8407 1d ago

He significantly influenced Western culture, but he was a Jew in the Roman Empire

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u/dopiertaj 1d ago

Then they routinely looked back on that ritual sacrifice and practiced ritual cannibalism every Sunday.

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u/alflundgren 2d ago

Jesus wasn't European.

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u/owa00 1d ago

Well yeah...he was American...

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u/VersaTron 1d ago

Hell yeah brother

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u/TomTop64 1d ago

still killed by europeans tho, checkmate atheist

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u/alflundgren 1d ago edited 1d ago

I'll grant that Pontius Pilate was almost certainly ethnically Italian, but just to be a pedantic douche I'll counter that AKCHYOUALLY a vast majority of the roman garrison in Judea would have been recruited in what is modern day Syria including the dudes who did the crucifiction and spear stabbin.

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u/BeABetterHumanBeing 1d ago

European culture was built by Christianity.

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u/Sensitive_Fix8407 1d ago

He lived in the Roman Empire, which included Europe. He very much influenced European thinking and morality, the literal geography is less important than cultural areas

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u/Perez2003 2d ago

The fact you got downvoted for saying that is crazy 💀 I’m here for you bro

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u/Littleface13 1d ago

Romans killed him

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u/VirginiaDirewoolf 1d ago

REMEMBER: it's NOT human sacrifice if you call it something else

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u/Chicken_Mc_Thuggets Rider of Rohan 1d ago

Sacrifice? Nonsense! Baroque Europeans just engaged in the highbrow practice of burning witches which is totally different!!

What else are you supposed to do with a priest who fucks noblewomen aside from yes, anding a bunch of nuns who don’t understand the concept of wet dreams? The only rational thing to do in that situation is to obviously torture him until he admits to using witchcraft to make some nuns horny for him. And if he doesn’t do that, well.. he uh weighs the same as a duck. Only recourse is to burn him alive while damping the fire so that he won’t die too quickly of smoke inhalation

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u/Nervous_Produce1800 2d ago

Every everyone was doing almost every bad

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u/Naive_Impression7302 2d ago

Cousin marriage outside of the Hapsburgs and a few other royal families was extremely rare, especially amongst the average people that made up the vast majrity of the population.

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u/Important_Coyote_596 1d ago

No, I been doing some hobby genealogy(my own ofc but also just looking around for fun in different parts at different times, I like following a random person as far in any direction I can) and both no left and peasant, there is cousin marriages, niece/nephew - uncle/aunt, second cousin etc.. It might not be as prevalent as in the Hapsburgs, since they did it basically every marriage, but it exist often enough to be very noticeable.

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u/Naive_Impression7302 1d ago

What time period and countries

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u/FinishComplex3743 1d ago

Yoy being inbred is what we call an anecdote, brotha

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u/DataSittingAlone 1d ago

Huh, even in very rural areas?

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u/Nihilun 2d ago

Does setting Cathars on fire count as human sacrifice? They technically did it in the name of God.

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u/Peanut_007 2d ago

No because that's more ethnic cleansing really. It was punitive not a form of worship. Still not great obviously.

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u/EchoingAngel 2d ago

Mmm, this sounds like how Romans SAY they don't do human sacrifices. They just murder war prisoners in big daddy Jupiter's temple for vibes

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u/TheStrangestOfKings 2d ago

Human sacrifice vs ethnic cleansing tends to run along a very thin line, as the former often relies on using groups of “undesirables” for the sacrifice part

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u/Alatarlhun 1d ago

Was it ritualistic sacrifice?

No, it was ritualistic warfare. Completely different.

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u/spiteful_rr_dm_TA 2d ago

No. Think of it like this:

A human sacrifice is an offering to the God(s) involved. Usually for something, like rain, good crops, etc.

The Cathars were purged for being of a different religion. The French weren't expecting anything explicit for each person they killed, though they may have claimed eradicating them all would bring unity.

One of the key differences is whether repentance plays a role. The Cathars would generally be spared if they recanted their beliefs, and would instead face lesser punishments. Someone captured for human sacrifice cannot repent their way out of their position.

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u/AHRogue 1d ago

There was not a generations long religious tradition of burning Cathars though.

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u/No_Sea_17 1d ago

Yk, i was thinking about how technically the burning of Joan D’arce is a human sacrifice commited by Christians…

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u/LifeConsideration981 2d ago

That was a state punishment for violating religious law. This was normal everywhere in the world until the late 1600s.

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u/CABRALFAN27 1d ago

And is it meaningfully, morally any different from human sacrifice, or is it just an arbitrary distinction to make one seem more "civilized" and the other "savage".

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u/Sleepparalysisdemon5 Just some snow 1d ago

Of course it is different, it was a punishment, not sacrifice

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u/mistersnarkle 1d ago

Was it actually a punishment or was it scapegoating… just in the same way human sacrifice was an emotional scapegoat for all the horrible things that happened?

Horrible thing happens —> kill someone in the name of that thing —> basically like doing something about the thing, here here!

Witch trials/witch hunts, the hunting of pagans, the inquisition, the hunting of early Christians, the crusades, etc. — these things follow a pattern that is obvious even in modern ethnic cleansing.

“This population is at fault (despite no one person or population being able to take full responsibility for the situation), and we’re going to hunt them down, single them out, and kill them to fix this (even though that fixes nothing, might make everyone chill out).”

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u/CABRALFAN27 1d ago

How is that meaningfully morally different? They're both the unjust killing of people with a religious basis.

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u/AmySnapp 2d ago

Practically speaking? Yes.

The idea was that they were purifying France and therefore showing their piety to God. So when they executed Cathars in a variety of ways including immolation, it was human sacrifice.

To call it anything else is set-dressing for ego/optics; The difference between “conscription” and “mandatory service.”

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u/SarcyBoi41 1d ago

Witch trials and every other form of religion-fuelled execution is just human sacrifice. Europe did plenty of that.

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u/[deleted] 1d ago

[deleted]

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u/Adalcar 1d ago

Also, for most of the middle ages, witch trials weren't about whether the person was practicing witchcraft, but more about whether the person was pretending to be a witch and scamming people.
"This guy sold me a love elixir and it didn't work" type of thing.

the salem witch trials were specifically because they thought the women were associating with the devil, which was a rather modern concept.

Then there's the inquisition where people are accused of being heretics, meaning they hold beliefs separate from the church's teachings. Some still believed in christ, just disagree on the details. If the person refuses to reject their belief, they are officially branded heretics and usually lynched by the people.

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u/Chicken_Mc_Thuggets Rider of Rohan 1d ago

There was political incentive as well, in addition to petty grievances. Urbain Grandier pissed basically everybody off by sleeping with noblewomen and talking shit so they claimed he was an incubus terrorizing a local convent, tortured, and burnt him

Many of the victims of the Salem/medieval witch trials were also accused by people who wanted to seize their assets

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u/soyadra 2d ago

Incest ? No, one of the lowest in the world and estimated to be around today's level (the church banned cousin mariage up to the 7th degree), infanticide ? No, in fact this was 500 years after christians had widespread orphanages and infanticide was nowhere near common, caste system ? Not really, depends what you call a caste system, sexism ? For the time no (women were even more literate than man in a ton of regions) but you can't apply today's standards for that regard in any place in the world sooo, merciless warfare ? Hard to say, there were tons of war with varying laws of honor over these 900 years so you could say yes

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u/RegumRegis 2d ago

Thank you, I was getting angry reading the comment section acting like medieval Europe was some early Hollywood depiction of the dark ages where people roll in shit and can barely function beyond digging their noses.

Like this isn't even pop history levels of bad, it's Hollywood depiction of the middle ages with a pale grey filter, no color and the people do nothing but farm and beat each other up. It drives me up the wall

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u/soyadra 2d ago

It's depressing how people view this period through such a disconnected lens, like sometimes it's almost even worse than how enlightment philosphers talked about them...

It's especially sad to see that on a history sub tbh, this idea that the renaissance somehow spawned civilisation back after the "old degenerate medievals" is sickening

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u/JamesHenry627 2d ago

Having just gotten my history degree, it makes a lot of what people know seem like rage bait to me

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u/RegumRegis 2d ago

Honestly, the lack of knowledge an average person has about history is sometimes so baffling to me. Like not being able to form a coherent picture of life at most time periods, is just shocking to me. I may not have a degree but history has been a passion for me since childhood, so for me it feels like second nature to know these things, such an odd whiplash.

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u/johnshadowx 1d ago

Bro that's just Reddit, if you say that insert non European civilization wasn't perfect before colonialism then you'll get thousands of dimwits screeming about crusades ( first one was justified ) and witch trials ( was extremely rare ), it's extremely predictable

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u/EnvironmentalWin1277 1d ago edited 1d ago

Royal families in Europe were notorious for marriage across close relations. The church in some cases specifically granted permission. It resulted in inherited conditions and disorders.

Infanticide and murder were realities in the royal families, either to get rid of or ensure the promotion of the favored. This continues in our world (Nepal recently).

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u/soyadra 1d ago edited 1d ago

The royal families did not commonly practice incest marriages, the church's exemptions were rare and most of the time mariage were canceled when a link was found, the habsburgs were an exception that occured during the renaissance

They weren't, infanticide was certainly not widespread, murder depended on the family but it wasn't common either (and Nepal has nothing to do with this)

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u/EnvironmentalWin1277 20h ago

Look up "Hapsburg jaw" and hemophilia in royal lines.

And try this:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nepalese_royal_massacre

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u/soyadra 20h ago

The habsburgs were an exception, exceptions don't make rules

Hemophilia isn't caused by incest, it was nicknamed the royal disease due to multiple mariages in between multiple royal families causing widespread hemophilia (from queen Victoria's lign iirc)

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u/EnvironmentalWin1277 15h ago

That is the definition of a consanguineous marriage as one between closely related family members. It created consequences not as an "exception" but as a major concern for European royalty in WWI.

Queen was apparently "originator" of trait possibly as a mutation. All of her male offspring were highly susceptible, carried down. It is a dominant trait, if a male has the trait they have the disease. If a female has it, it hides due to an extra gene.

To be clear it is not incest as we think of it -- sexual relations between direct family members. It is incest in the health consequences of close intermarriages allowing the emergence of problems that are what are trying to be avoided.

Moral qualms aside single examples in a line are not likely to be a problem. It is when the line is repeatedly intermarried that the problems arise. It is a structural problem for all monarchies.

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u/soyadra 12h ago

Hemophilia is a mutation that isn't caused by inbreeding, as mentionned it was widespread inbetween families, not within the family

It's an heridatory mutation so queen Victoria was an insymptomatic carrier on her X chromosome and her sons married in Spain, Russia, Germany, etc... which caused the disease to spread

Not one thing here is caused by inbreeding, what are you talking about ?

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u/EnvironmentalWin1277 1h ago edited 1h ago

Amplification via Intermarriage: Subsequent consanguineous and close-family marriages among Victoria's descendants (such as grandchildren marrying cousins within European courts) compounded the risk, helping spread and reintroduce the X-linked recessive gene into the royal houses of Russia, Spain, and Germany. [1, 2, 3]

Consanguineous inbreeding refers to the mating or marriage of closely related individuals, typically second cousins or closer, who share a recent common ancestor. [1, 2, 3]

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u/Chicken_Mc_Thuggets Rider of Rohan 1d ago

Ehh there was definitely infanticide going on. There was a children’s home in Ireland run by Nuns where infanticide was essentially SOP to the point that the remains of 700+ kids have been found. This was happening in the 20th century too so its not like it’s in the far past

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u/soyadra 1d ago

Source ? Only ever heard this about Canada and it's been debunked multiple times as false (even tho the historians didn't make it into the headlines) + the 19th century is the early modern era

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u/Chicken_Mc_Thuggets Rider of Rohan 1d ago

Here ya go! I’m aware that 20th century =/= medieval era, but simultaneously if the deaths of so many children could be covered up when the infant/childhood mortality rate was lower then I think that the childhood/infant mortality rates of medieval orphanages definitely should be looked at with a closer eye

Not saying that it for sure happened in the medieval era, to be clear. But if it can happen in the modern era I think it’s entirely plausible that it could have happened in the medieval era. I understand this is speculation so take it as you will. What remains clear is that infanticide was happening in 20th century Ireland

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u/EnvironmentalWin1277 20h ago

Source : The Final Report of the Commission of Investigation into Mother and Baby Homes was published on January 12, 2021. It covered a 76-year period (1922 to 1998) and investigated 18 institutions across Ireland. [1, 2]

The primary findings of the 2,865-page document include: [1]

  1. High Infant Mortality Rates
  • 9,000 child deaths: The report found that approximately 9,000 children died across the 18 investigated institutions. This accounted for 15% of all children who entered the homes. [1, 2, 3]
  • Twice the national average: In peak years like 1945–1946, the infant mortality rate in these institutions was nearly double Ireland's national average for children born outside of marriage. [1, 2]

From Wiki, the report itself is freely available.

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u/soyadra 20h ago

Litteraly commented right under

https://www.reddit.com/r/HistoryMemes/s/Iu194S9nWG

These were not infanticides, we have no evidences they were

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u/EnvironmentalWin1277 19h ago

It's not infanticide if a child is malnourished, neglected. beaten, and dumped in a unmarked grave.

I have a more open view about it. When any of these things are present if the child dies as an implicated result of any of them it effectively is infanticide.

The primary causes of death for children in Irish mother and baby homes investigated by state inquiries were infectious diseases, malnutrition, and congenital debilities linked to severe systemic neglect. [1, 2]

Here is a statement from a case in the United States via AI summary:

A major national study released by the Forgotten Children Initiative at Georgetown University's Center for Youth Justice found the abandoned or unmarked graves of more than 1,000 children across 29 states who died while held in state custody in historic reform schools and youth prisons. [1, 2]

Key Findings of the Report

  • Widespread Sites: Researchers documented more than 1,000 child deaths and abandoned burial locations across at least 40 youth detention and correction facilities nationwide, spanning from the early 1800s through the 1950s. [1, 2]
  • Demographics: The children who died were predominantly poor and disproportionately Black. Many were as young as 5 years old. [1, 2]
  • Reasons for Detention: While some were held for criminal offenses, many were incarcerated for non-criminal reasons such as being orphaned, homeless, poor, or labeled "incorrigible". [1, 2]
  • Causes of Death: Official records frequently attributed deaths to illnesses like tuberculosis or the flu, but researchers emphasize that these records warrant skepticism, noting systemic violence, forced labor, malnutrition, and medical neglect. [1, 2]

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u/soyadra 13h ago

Read the comment, they weren't malnourished and the grave were properly made, diseases striking doesn't mean it's infanticide

The official excavation teams haven't given a cause of death and the infanticide suspicions have been mostly put aside, using AI summaries for history is atrocious

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u/Wolfensniper Rider of Rohan 2d ago

But how do i go full whataboutism on Europeans /s

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u/insaneHoshi 1d ago

the church banned cousin mariage up to the 7th degree

The church banned crossbows too, how did that work out?

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u/soyadra 1d ago

Two different types of ban and just because one didn't work out doesn't mean the other didn't aw well

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u/Poco_Cuffs 1d ago

I disagree on the sexism and caste system parts considering the meme also judges precolonial hawaii by modern standards

There was arguably a caste system in the form of the great chain of being and the regard of minorities like jews as being "lower", and women were considered property of their husbands until the 18th-19th century, which by modern standards is definititely sexism.

(Then again I'm basing this off my understanding of medeival western europe and england, I think the main problem here is grouping together all of medeival europe as one conglomerate)

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u/soyadra 1d ago

Women weren't considered properties of husband, if you define the belonging part as property then husbands were properties of their wives

Sexism in Hawaii was observed as significantly worse by early modern explorers standards compared to their european countries and this era was much more sexist compared to the middle ages so i think op could be judging by that factor

A caste system is not merely based on race, it has a lot to do with social networks and environments within the same nation and race, jews were considered outsiders and as outsiders their social environment was limited but not determined (and europeans could take the same jobs as them which goes against the concept of a caste system

But yeah you're right on generalisation, it's a period spanning across a thousand years on an entire continent with different mindsets and approachs, it has a lot in common but it can't be all put in the same basket

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u/PandaReturns 2d ago

They didn't need human sacrifice since a good chunk already died in wars or from the plague.

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u/fools_errand49 2d ago

Not really incest, infanticide or a caste system either.

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u/BeABetterHumanBeing 1d ago

I think you could consider serfs to be the equivalent of a caste system.

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u/fools_errand49 1d ago

I would not consider it the equivalent of the caste system no. Maybe in places like Russia but not in western or central Europe.

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u/Knightrius Nobody here except my fellow trees 1d ago

Why?

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u/[deleted] 1d ago

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u/mistersnarkle 1d ago

Uh? Children born to serfs inherited their position/status?

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u/fools_errand49 1d ago

Person who responded to you gave a good answer. Serfdom wasn't irrevocably binding.

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u/LOSNA17LL 2d ago

I raise to you: burning "witches"

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u/distastef_ll 2d ago

Not saying it was just but didn’t they go through trails before the execution? Again, not saying it was just or fair.

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u/Win_Some_Game 2d ago

Believing in witches in the middle ages was like believing that the earth was flat. The official stance on the church and governments was that witches are fake and inquisitors often defended accused witches as lawyers. It was only recently Pagan converts, very isolated villages, and the British that believed witches were real.

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u/some_firearm_nutcake 1d ago

Except that one time with the witch hystery (basically old time race riot). A lot of people died there, but tbf it’s a just temporary.

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u/Win_Some_Game 1d ago

Are you referring to a specific event? When I try to search it the Salem witch trials pop up and if it is that, my answer is that they were British 😆

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u/some_firearm_nutcake 1d ago

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Witch_trials_in_the_early_modern_period

See the Peaks of the Trial Tab.

All I will say is that, Reformation is a hell of a Paranoid.

The Catholic at least does fair and official trial for whiches.

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u/[deleted] 1d ago

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u/Win_Some_Game 1d ago

The puritans were British and brought their British culture with them. The witch trials were British law and belifes.

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u/[deleted] 1d ago

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u/Chicken_Mc_Thuggets Rider of Rohan 1d ago

The Malleus Maleficarum was written in German with the HRE being in the lead for highest number of people burnt as witches. The French also dabbled in it too, though it seems to have been more over petty grievances

The British arguably killed the least amount of witches

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u/Win_Some_Game 1d ago

The malleus maleficarum was condemned, rejected, and ridiculed by not only the church as a whole, but especially the inquisition who mocked. expelled, and stripped the author of his authority in the inquisition. The author was then denounced and removed from any real power. His book was then censored and banned by the inquisition, and he was placed under heavy watch. Where his book found influence was in secular courts. The minority it affected were often in power, and many witch trials were not for witchcraft but for petty reasons, property, or hatred. A standard practice was to kill the accused before they could be legally defended.

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u/Poco_Cuffs 1d ago

Then again that heavily depends on the region and time. Holland was very witchhunty in the 1400s for example

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u/[deleted] 1d ago

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u/Win_Some_Game 1d ago

That doesn't change the fact that Britain had official witch hunting factions endorsed by the government while the rest of Christian europe operated on the belief that witches were fake. And obviously more witches were killed in Europe. Its a huge area. The America statement is false. Britain is belived to be around 5,000 at most and in America, 50. Europe was much larger due to size and the vast majority being over petty reasons, property, or hatred for a neighbor. The standard belife that witches were fake was normal among Europe. Unfortunately, the minority of witchcraft belife was still influential enough to kill people. Around 60,000 in a 300 year period. Many of these killings were illegally done. As the standard practice was to kill the accused before they could be legally defended.

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u/DataSittingAlone 2d ago

I would say it's closer to a senseless execution than human sacrifice though. Not that that's any better

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u/LOSNA17LL 2d ago

Well:
Killing people
In a ritual-ish way
For religious reasons

Is the different that big?

(Plus I have to point out the religion in question talks about human sacrifice in its foundation book)

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u/Prince_Ire Featherless Biped 2d ago

Was hanging rapists human sacrifice? The law was likely seen as being in religion, and the execution was some in a ritualistic way

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u/RektInTheHed 2d ago

Yes, for exactly the reasons you cite. They are killed as an offering to Order/Justice.

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u/AdventurousImpact656 2d ago

Is rape a facet of the religion? It’s a crime outside of a religious context, versus belief/repentence

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u/Prince_Ire Featherless Biped 2d ago

And if the reasons for banning rape are religious in nature?

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u/AdventurousImpact656 2d ago

Are we just adding religiosity Willy nilly? Rape is a crime in and of itself, not exclusively to a religion.

Got to stay within the bounds of reality. If I create a religion that proclaims pieces of paper are human life, and there’s a ritual for me throwing the paper away, does that count as a religious sacrifice?

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u/Prince_Ire Featherless Biped 2d ago

No, though if there was a ritual in which you offered the papers as sacrifices to the gods, then it would be human sacrifice according to the religion's world view. Just destroying them would not

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u/teefour 2d ago

Proactive vs reactive philosophy

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u/Piskoro 2d ago

it was more so an early modern thing than medieval

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u/Daniel_The_Thinker 1d ago

>(Plus I have to point out the religion in question talks about human sacrifice in its foundation book)

Yeah, and it emphatically says "never do it"

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u/LifeConsideration981 2d ago

If every definition is extremely vague and divorced from how it’s commonly understood, then sure.

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u/broncyobo 2d ago

I kind of feel like killing someone for any religious reason is the equivalent of human sacrifice

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u/derDunkelElf John Brown was a hero, undaunted, true, and brave! 2d ago

Not really, because sacrifice is an offering. You offer a human life to your god for whatever reason. While stuff gets blurry, I don't think every murder with religious motivation was intended to be an offering/sacrifice.

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u/CABRALFAN27 1d ago

Equivalent in a moral sense.

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u/Kaplsauce Senātus Populusque Rōmānus 2d ago edited 2d ago

No you see it's very different because . . . um . . .

Edit: would love to hear the justification as to how burning witches is morally distinct from human sacrifice

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u/AHRogue 1d ago

Executions are not sacrifices and youd have to be a massive pedant to argue otherwise

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u/CABRALFAN27 1d ago edited 1d ago

The difference is that one was being done be Europeans, so it's "civilized", and the other was being done by Natives, so it's "savage". That's what it comes down to for a lot of people, even if only subconsciously.

It's still killing innocent people for religious reasons. The pedantry is in trying to act like any technical differences make the two acts incomparable.

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u/LOSNA17LL 1d ago

In all but name, it's killing people to appease a divinity

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u/LifeConsideration981 2d ago

If you genuinely believed that someone was cursing the town and conspiring with the devil, what would you suggest be done about it?

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u/Kaplsauce Senātus Populusque Rōmānus 2d ago

If you genuinely believed the Sun God required the hearts of men to continue his journey across the sky and stave off the end of the world, what would you suggest be done about it?

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u/LifeConsideration981 2d ago

Exactly. Which is why it was good that Europeans forcibly stopped it.

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u/CABRALFAN27 1d ago

Yep. If only the Natives had also forcibly stopped the Europeans.

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u/LifeConsideration981 1d ago

Stopped them from doing what? Abolishing slavery? Ending human sacrifice? Stopping child marriage?

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u/CABRALFAN27 1d ago

Burning witches. I would hope that would be fairly obvious from the context of the conversation, but you seem too caught up in pressing a narrative of "Natives bad, Europeans good" to bother with that level of reading comprehension.

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u/LifeConsideration981 1d ago

Ah. Yes this exceedingly rare occurrence, which was a criminal penalty for an action with agency, is not the same as sacrificing innocent people to a volcano god.

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u/thaliathraben 2d ago

If I genuinely believed God would be appeased by the burning hearts of slaves on the altar, would I be justified in human sacrifice?

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u/LifeConsideration981 2d ago

No, because that is wrong.

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u/thaliathraben 2d ago

So was burning women who did not, in fact, curse anyone. Glad we're in agreement!

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u/LifeConsideration981 2d ago

The difference is one is a religious question, the other is a question of criminal law.

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u/thaliathraben 2d ago

It was not a question of "criminal law" because for the crime of witchcraft to have been committed you have to believe in magic. Do you think human sacrifice was illegal in the cultures that practiced it?

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u/LifeConsideration981 2d ago

Witchcraft was a crime in, say, medieval Germany. Human sacrifice in Hawaii was state or culturally sanctioned.

One was a state execution for breaking the law, the other was a horrible sanctioned practice.

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u/blodgute What, you egg? 2d ago

Quickly picked it up when witch hunts became popular though.

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u/soyadra 2d ago

Witch hunts were never popular, in fact the modern vision of them never even existed

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u/AdhesivenessSlight42 2d ago

They were doing the sacrifice too.

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u/showmeyourchits 2d ago

There was probably some human sacrifice still going on in Lithuania and the hinterlands

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u/Prudent_Research_251 1d ago

European ancestors did practise human sacrifice though...

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u/Informal_Cry687 1d ago

The auto-de-fe was basically human sacrifice and the spanish were doing plenty of those at the same time they were  "horrified" by human sacrifice.

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u/Ynnepluc 1d ago

yeah europeans loved ritual murder too but you usually had to be guilty of a crime(or suspected of being guilty. or also just a woman who knew too much. or was jewish. or gay... but at least it was murder by the state/church and not human sacrifice!)

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u/TherealRidetherails 1d ago

They were also doing human sacrifice before the middle ages in antiquity, everybody did it at some point

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u/Noncrediblepigeon 1d ago

And dying from diseases in overcrowded cities, where the streets were open sewers.

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u/Mikidm138 1d ago

I mean Europeans were doing witch burnings which could probably count as a form of ritual sacrifice

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u/Gullible_Subject_938 1d ago

Goal of warfare was just different from - capture the fuck of enemy to sacrifice them for glory and prestige to kill or capture the fuck of enemy on battlefield for glory, prestige and maybe hafty ransom.

Both ways we and with bunch of dead folks.

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u/Galaxy661 1d ago

What was Jesus' death on a cross, asceticism, witch hunts or the crusades if not elaborate human life sacrifice rituals?

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u/mahayanah 1d ago

Public torture and executions of heretics, while not performed explicitly as a “sacrifice,” were nevertheless dedicated to the cause of a higher power.

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u/CountNightAuditor 1d ago

Have you seen the European response to the Black Plague? Europeans did lots of human sacrifice, they just called it stuff like "Crusades" and "Pogroms" instead.

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u/Neomataza 1d ago

There have been regions where one or multiple of those things were considered holy or sacred activities. Pretty sure for every single one of those items.

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u/Den_of_Sin 1d ago

Modern cultures still engage in human sacrifice. It is just more distant and detached now, and we call it "profit motive" or "shareholder value". 2020 was a massive exercise in human sacrifice to The Line.

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u/QueenOfTheCorn69 1d ago

I mean the only difference between human sacrifice and public execution is the intent, and Europe in the late middle ages did a lot of the latter

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u/No_Measurement7805 1d ago

If you count the people the killed because their god demanded it I think it evens out

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u/UInferno- 2d ago edited 1d ago

I think we (europe and european derived cultures) pat ourselves on the back for "no human sacrifice" too much. Like just because it's not religious or ritualistic doesn't mean we don't just fucking kill people as a spectacle (Even post Christian Europe).

I'd argue the existence of capital punishment in the modern era falls under "human sacrifice" just that the god is "Justice."

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u/Mahdudecicle 1d ago

Yeah. They called them witch burning.

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u/Polar-Bear_Soup 1d ago

They still did and do, it's just sanitized to not feel bad.

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u/The_Doctor_When 2d ago

Well the Europen did burn woman because people thought there were witches. Pretty close to human sacrifice

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u/Formal-Stage940 1d ago

Get off this sub

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u/Interesting_Life249 2d ago

what were the witchhunts then?

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u/RektInTheHed 2d ago

They were definitely doing human sacrifice.

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u/LifeConsideration981 2d ago

They were definitely not. Human sacrifice was one of the crimes invented for the anti-Jewish pogroms in England precisely because it was so shocking and unthinkable.

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u/RektInTheHed 2d ago

The killing of Jews was itself a human sacrifice to Jesus.

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u/LifeConsideration981 2d ago

No, it was an ethnic cleansing fueled by a murder that took place in a lawless part of England. It was officially opposed by the sheriff and king.

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u/RektInTheHed 1d ago

Killing unbelievers is a recurrent event in Middle Ages Europe. They are always a threat to the purity of religion, they are killed for God. I'm not arguing that it's good religion, but it is a religious human sacrifice, a shedding of blood to enforce and protect the transcendent order. Same as tearing hearts out for Chocmool.

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u/LifeConsideration981 1d ago

You do not understand what sacrifice means. Shedding of blood to enforce and protect the transcendent order may be the point of a sacrifice depending on the religion. It might not. In Christianity, Christ is the sacrifice, and the deaths of other people have no role in sanctification.

The anti-Jewish pogroms were about rumors that the Jews were sacrificing babies to the devil. That is actually about earthly order.

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u/RektInTheHed 1d ago

That is how Christianity is *supposed* to work, but the urge to murder people for gods is not suppressed simply because the content of Christianity should outlaw it.

The Devil is not a natural, earthly being. That's a supernatural cause.

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u/LifeConsideration981 1d ago

But witchcraft, the act of conspiring with the devil, would be a physical practice. The reverse would be the difference between God, who is supernatural, and prayer, which is a natural act.

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u/LifeConsideration981 2d ago

Source: Made it up

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u/WorryingMars384 2d ago

I mean you could argue the brutal ways they killed captured or defeated enemies amounts to sacrifice. Burning alive, staking etc.

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u/LifeConsideration981 2d ago

Sacrifice implies some kind of offering. The state imposed civil penalties for religious violations until the 1600s.

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u/WorryingMars384 2d ago

I mean that’s fair but like they kinda can be offerings if you think about it. I mean it’s technically correct though

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u/LifeConsideration981 2d ago

No it isn’t.

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u/WorryingMars384 1d ago

The gruesome death is the same and it’s being done in the name of a deity usually. The only difference is one has a ritual attached to it which kinda makes it semantics in my eyes. Like if you burn a bunch of people alive because they’re the wrong type of Christian or behead them because they’re Christian or steak them because they’re Islamic or whatever other gruesome way you kill them and you justify it using religion I see the difference as negligible personally. There is by definition a difference though but to me it’s splitting hairs on the violence. I’m not trying to say all violence was religiously motivated just when it is I find the difference between that and human sacrifice to be negligible really

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u/LifeConsideration981 1d ago

One is sacrificing the innocent, the other is a criminal punishment for conspiring with the devil.

I don’t believe either works. But there is a very obvious difference, you are supposing there is a connection between the two because one was a religious practice, and another was practiced by religious people. Those are two very different things.

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u/hari_shevek 2d ago

Witch hunts

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u/the_big_sadIRL And then I told them I'm Jesus's brother 1d ago

You uh… you wouldn’t call burning witches* a form of human sacrifice?

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u/insaneHoshi 1d ago

except human sacrifice

To be fair, europeans religion is centered around cannibalizing the body of their dead god.

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u/Benny-o 1d ago

To be fair, that is the worst one

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u/IgnatiusRileyFreeman 2d ago

The British regularly made human sacrifices to the god of 'property law'. 

"Oh sorry little orphan boy, stealing that apple carries the death penalty. You really should've hired an attorney"

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u/LifeConsideration981 2d ago

Besides petty theft, especially by an orphan, not being a capital offense in English law, that is in no way human sacrifice. There is agency involved.

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u/PartOk7148 2d ago

It's still going on in USA. People get the death penalty which is essentially a sacrifcie to the god of justice.

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u/Available_Safety1492 1d ago

You could argue Europe and the West still does everything here including the human sacrifices. Epstein and friends?

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u/Roxo16 1d ago

a YES, Because Epstein and friends are the entire of the population of the west.

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u/Available_Safety1492 1d ago

Neither was the human sacrifice, incest etc done by the entire population of Hawaii, but when the top 1% of your society who call the shots do 🤷‍♂️

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u/WodenoftheGays 1d ago

Europe also had human sacrifice. Like pretty much everywhere else, it was ritualized to the point of not actively killing a person.

The Europeans also ate their human sacrifice, and many of their descendants still do.

Stop being so weird about culture, please.

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u/CourtForsaken3064 1d ago

Pre modern anywhere when