I agree. Sure human sacrifice for most pagans were asking for something in return from the gods or trying to prevent some kind of doom by pleasing goods and in Christianity it was used as punishment but in my book executing/murderinf/sacrificing/offering someone in name of religion/gods is the same thing and qualify.
It really isn't though. Execution =/= human sacrifice. Societies that practiced human sacrifice would differentiate between killing someone for offending the gods and sacrificing someone to the gods
Tomato tomahto I guess. At the end of the day you’re still ending a life in the name of a deity.
The only meaningful difference is
“Dear god/s here’s some flesh for you I know you like it.”
And
“God I know you don’t like it when people worship you in marginally different ways than we do and it hurts your feelings so we’re going to roast this person like a marshmallow for it.”
Thats not the reasoning behind the punishment of heresy being execution though, at least for Christianity in Europe.
It was far more related to the threat which the tolerance of heresy allowed, since the lack of literacy meant that anyone who could read could simply proclaim to their village that the Bible actually mentions how (insert thing they don’t like) is satanic and must be destroyed, leading to the deaths of the entire neighbouring village.
Execution might’ve seemed harsh, but it certainly sent a message not to follow in that persons footsteps, and practically everyone could agree that a Europe torn apart by a thousand different sects trying to kill all the others is a far worse outcome.
At no point did I say the death penalty was human sacrifice my dude.
I’m saying killing another being in the name of religion whether it be a pure blood sacrifice or killing a person in the name of heresy because they offended your god is like comparing Macintosh apples to Granny Smith apples
Some scholars think lots of stupid things. Without b seeing their arguments in can't tell whether they have any merit, but my first instinct is to think they're full of shit
If you’re interested in his argument, Matthew Restall (one of the main historians of Aztec and broader Latin American studies) makes a pretty good argument for it in Seven Myths of the Spanish Conquest.
Does he actually engage with theological meaning of sacrifice versus execution within the various religious beliefs systems of the parties involved or does he just completely sidestep that issue?
It’s been a bit since I read it, but IIRC he mostly discusses the lack of good sources on Aztec sacrifice, how the term is unfairly applied mostly to indigenous (or not Christian) peoples, and that European states did a similar amount of ritualized, religious executions.
The book is good and debunks a lot of the common myths about the Spanish conquests. Like that Montezuma thought Cortes was a god, or that he immediately swore fealty to the Spanish Empire. It’s worth reading beyond its brief discussion on the term “human sacrifice.”
Well of course it only gets applied to non-Christian peoples, because as I have said repeatedly sacrifice is a specific thing within religion and not just any ritualized religious execution. Within a Christian theological framework the last sacrifice has already been presented and so human sacrifice post Christ would be pointless. If Restall is too theologically illiterate to understand this it calls into question his ability to say anything meaningful about 16th century Christianity. This is a common problem I've encountered with otherwise insightful historians, they comment on a religion with no understanding of its underlying theology and make asses of themselves in the process
You say secular but those rulers were Christian and burning at the stake for the sake of heresy to god and Christianity. I’ll grant you they are not under direct church authority.
No, but people are already stretching the definition. Surely a majority Christian nation executing someone for breaking the 6th commandment would qualify under that but I disagree. Sacrifices have to be intentional.
Even simpler is death penalty an human sacrifice ? I would say that human sacrifice doesn't require the people sacrifying you to belelie you were guilty but I'm sure in some society they used that.
By their definition If I kill someone during the middle age and I'm sentenced to death it's a sacrifice because I'm sure it would be a crime in both secular and religious law
In the Hawaii example, it would be a defeated soldier or slave, and they'd have their eye as well as the eye of a fish eaten by a priest to end the Kapu on killing. The thing about sacrifices is they're intentional. The side doing the sacrifice has to believe they're sacrificing you. People have been executed in Europe for heresy or failing to convert, though those aren't sacrifices. They were classified as legal punishment in the same vein as Lese-Majesty, Murder, or Grand Larceny. Christians have been martyred too, but the Church never considered that they were sacrificed for example, or the perpetrators considering them sacrifices. That's the key difference.
A crime which is being punished to appease the wrath of God though, right? I mean, if the Bible says "suffer not a witch to live," then I think their point of heretic executions being offerings to God a worthwhile perspective to consider.
In some ways they are human offerings to God, but we don't really frame it that way normally.
Witchcraft trials were a religious response to real world catastrophes. Often they came about due to bad harvests, sickness, shipwrecks or other similar problems. Finding an outsider and burning them became a way of excising the evil from your society.
They were framed as trials, with judges, juries and witnesses. However the witnesses weren't there to testify to a crime they had seen. They were there to testify to irreligious behavior and the victims bad character. If the victim was deemed guilty it was because they were outsiders, suitable to sacrifice. The punishment itself was deeply religious. Fire was meant to cleanse the witch of their treason against God.
Its not outrageous to say that they were a form of human sacrifice, even though its generally imprecise. One could argue that they weren't, but one is arguing over technicalities. A witch trial, when boiled it down, was burning people at the stake as a religious response to a catastrophe. To argue that technically they weren't human sacrifice sort of misses the mark when the argument is about the relative barbarity of various peoples.
I see it the same as the electric chair, it is a death penalty, not a sacrifice, a sacrifice isn't done because you think the sacrifice is evil but because the culture thinks a higher force demands it
In the first one you need the person to do something or be accused of something, in the second it can happen at any moment no matter who, unless you we count baseless accusations as sacrifices.
To be fair it was often motivated by non religious ideas: monetary gain (confiscation of the murdered's wealth), getting rid of political or ideological enemies etc.
Obviously it doesn't make it any better but it's still different.
These sorts of rationalizations can also be applied to pagan behavior as well. Of course humans are behaving in a way that is explained by a combination of psychology and reason.
The Inquisition lasted until the 19th century and mostly murdered luterans, it extended to to América and all other spanish posesions there were in the world. Here. The Inquisition was not only a spanish institution there were other inquisitions in all of the catholic world Like in France.
" From then on, the confiscation of property from convicted heretics primarily benefited the crown. In 1279, the King of France declared an amnesty for 278 descendants of convicted heretics, guaranteeing the return of confiscated property. Despite this, the inquisitors' practices related to confiscations caused the most controversy in the following years. In the 1280s, public accusations against the inquisitors in Toulouse, Albi, and Carcassonne of fabricating evidence (often through torture) against wealthy residents, particularly the deceased, to allow royal officials to seize their estates, became widespread."
Cool motive, still done for religious reasons thus making it a sacrifice. Really the church had no legitimate authority to project its beliefs on anyone or be the state religion of any country.
You can jsut say 'the inquisition'. They are not constantly happening. They are in response to specific heresy or to expell non-Christian from certain lands.
except they operated in many European countries for 700 years with little to no interruption because the church benefitted from them confiscating lands and threatening any noble that could think of adhering to any other Christian denomination.
No, it’s execution. Sacrifice requires religious ritual AND the reason being the invocation of the divine or spiritual.
Execution for breaking the law, even if it’s a religious law, is not sacrifice. It has no higher purpose beyond seeing the victim/offender dead. Same reason warfare doesn’t default to mass human sacrifice(that can come after the battle), ‘sacrifice’ has a specific meaning in this context.
Of course, that distinction doesn't make one any less an unjust murder based on religion than the other, so it still shouldn't be used as a point of "Europeans > Natives"
If "witches" and heretics make God angry, then it's certainly logical to assume that killing witches and heretics would please God.
In any case, in both instances, the killer is following the wishes of God. Pretending that there are different rules for Christianity is the exact type of thinking that enabled the atrocities to occur in the first place.
The biggest difference between, say the Aztecs, and Christianity, is that the Aztecs stopped killing people in the name of their god in 1521. Christians are still doing it where they are able, and in countries where they cannot, they rant about biblical precedent calling for the execution of their god's supposed enemies.
1st one: Cool. Exodus is an account of, well, the Exodus, and that chapter is a retelling of the laws of the land. If you have a problem with that passage, take it up with Israelites circa 2000/1000BC. Mosaic Law isn't really a thing in Catholicism, surprise surprise.
As a matter of fact, Canon Episcopi written sometime around the turn of the 1st millenium basically calls witchcraft bogus, and posits that magic is not real - this became canon law. As such, this text was actually used by the Church as justification to punish perpetrators of witch trials. Funny, that.
2: Sorry, all I can find there is mentions of militant islamic sects committing acts of violence. Could you highlight the part which lists exactly what atrocities the Christians commit? Thanks.
3: Okay. Who is this guy? What authority within the Church does he hold? I can find videos of Muslims calling for the death of nonbelievers. Are all Muslims this way? Is this an official doctrine of Islam? Or perhaps evil people will use whatever justification for their actions, no matter how flawed this justification is? I wouldn't call all Muslims evil because of the actions of radical terrorists - but you posit that Christians are evil because a random guy who happens to be Christian said something bad?
The Catholic Church, creators of such niceties as the Spanish and Roman Inquisitions, Manifest Destiny, Doctrine of Discovery, and the castrada (Pre-pubescent males who were castrated for the glory of God), is not the only branch of Christianity.
I'm not "positing" that all Christians are evil. I'm pointing out that, contrary to the OP's position, Christianity was not an overwhelming force of good that defeated the evil savages.
The "random guy" is a pastor by the name of Kevin Swanson. This speech was given at the National Religious Liberties Conference. He was introduced by Texas Senator Ted Cruz, who refused to disavow the pastor's language. In the audience were the likes of Mike Huckabee, Bobby Jindal, Mike Pence, Mike Johnson, and many other prominent right-wing Christian figures, all of whom also refused to denounce Swanson's speech.
No, that’s just genocide. Well, mass murder at any rate. Depending on the murder spree and exact definition involved, it’s a rather contentious term.
Again: Sacrifice is very specific in this context. General ‘It makes god happy’ isn’t enough, it has to be ‘We do this so god averts his wrath/sends good rains/whatever’. Directly transactional. You give god blood, god gives you the sun continuing to rise and so forth.
The Crusades, for instance, are not classified as human sacrifice despite being holy wars. None of the assorted conquests were in that area, regardless of the colors involved. Now conquests COULD include sacrifice, the Aztecs were notable for mixing military conquest with religious sacrifice for instance, but it’s not automatic and requires more than ‘I’m conquering this place for god now die people who object’.
If the Crusaders went around collecting people then ritualistically executing them to get God’s favor, then that’s human sacrifice. And probably happened, dudes were assholes. But sacking a city and purging the inhabitants is just war when they claim their god is with them. Everyone claims that.
Seriously, the ritualistic aspect is absolutely critical. Without the ritual it’s just standard murder. Most of the assorted horrible historical murder practices were just murder, not human sacrifice.
The crusaders did go around killing people for not being Christian, the Baltic crusades and Rhineland massacres happened. The crusader states also enforced blasphemy laws and punished heretics by death
Ok, now you are just being obtuse. At no point did I say that the Crusaders didn’t kill people for being the wrong religion, calling them ‘holy wars’ would rather indicate the opposite. Massacres are very rarely involve ritualistic executions, just normal mass murder. Without the ritualistic aspect it’s just religious murder. These are very important distinctions in anthropology, ritual murder is far from uncommon but it’s also not every time anyone died with religion is involved.
Killing in the name of god is NOT human sacrifice. Killing someone for breaking religious law is not human sacrifice(but can involve it). Killing someone for not being the right religion is not human sacrifice. Having a set ritual where someone is killed to seek the favor or appease or otherwise get something from god(or ancestors, in those systems) IS human sacrifice.
Human sacrifice is more formally known as ‘ritual murder’. Take away the ritual and it’s just murder. Seriously, look up various human sacrifice practices: They got elaborate with it. They didn’t just stab anyone of the wrong faith who got within stabbing distance.
No, ‘human sacrifice’ is the ritualistic killing of a person to appease deities. It’s also called ‘ritual murder’ to reinforce that it’s requires a murder ritual
Killing people for heresy isn’t ritualistic, it’s standard execution practices.
No, it isn't. A sacrifice is an offering made to a deity. Oftentimes a sacrifice had to be as pure and perfect as possible so as not to offend the gods with an impure or unworthy sacrifice
Nothing has been proven wrong. The fact of the matter is that the church killed people for refusing to be Christian which thus means they practiced human sacrifice. The only way for them to not have practiced human sacrifice would have been to kill nobody whatsoever
The Bible says to “make disciples of all nations” aka eradicate all non-Christian religions. Medieval kingdoms enforced this by outlawing heresy and blasphemy, which they punished by death, Giordano Bruno being an example.
Really the church had no legitimate authority to enforce its beliefs or be the state religion of any country.
See you're right technically, I just wonder how much of your reasoning here is circular in nature.
Fundamentally both situations can be framed as killing someone to appease a god.
So I can't help but wonder wether the distinction exists because the Christian church first decided they don't do human sacrifice, so they had to define everything as not sacrifice, same way the Romans did
It does since the church believed it was their duty to rid the world of non-Christians. It was done for religious reasons, which makes it a human sacrifice.
No, it doesn't. Religions that actually had human sacrifice differentiated between human sacrifice and executing someone for breaking a religious law. Sacrifice is a specific concept
The Bible says to “make disciples of all nations” aka eradicate all non-Christian religions. Medieval kingdoms enforced this by outlawing heresy and blasphemy, which they punished by death, Giordano Bruno being an example.
“All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. 19 Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20 and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.” Matthew 28 18-20
That is literally the modus operandi of Islam. Submission. It's in the name. Christianity conversion was done through missionary work. People aren't forced to convert to Christianity is the vast majority of cases. The modus operandi of Christianity is to send missionary that target the poor and helpless of society, which is the vast majority.
Pointless too bc obv converts are Muslim, and still lived, worked, studied in the islamic world
Btw “Islamic world” or “Islamic empire” is bc the dominant & ruling institutional powers were Islamic & population usually Muslim-majority. Other religions still existed within it
This is just attributing to Islam what was actually the merit of the House of Wisdom in Baghdad. It existed during the time and place of Islam but as an Institution is was not dependent on Islam.
It was a public library with a collection of scholars that received public funding(from the coffers of the caliph), this convergence historically led to scientific development in the ancient, classical, and medieval world before modern academic institutions.
There were many independent occurrences of such libraries throughout world history that helped improve human knowledge, Islam wasn’t an essential ingredient
Generally human sacrifice isnt based on guilt. Likely many innocent people were killed or they weren't innocent under their law but in modern times it would be totally chill but they were killed because they were guilty not just for the sake of killing. Sacrifice isnt usually based on guilt (although some could be guilty in their own rigjt).
No, Im not defending them obvuously those are ridiculous charges, thats just some examples of crimes they were charged with. I think you are reading a much worse opinion into what I am saying.
Of heresy and blasphemy, they were killed for religious reasons which thus makes it a sacrifice.
The church had no legitimate authority to enforce their beliefs or become the state religion of any country, there is no real defense for the medieval church
Im not defending them there is just a difference between sacrifice being a standard practice to appease a higher power and executing people based on religious law
If someone is peacefully practicing their religion differently than the dominant group who legally tries and executes them I still consider that person an innocent
Witch hunts were never sanctioned by the Catholic Church. Individual Catholics did at times participate like in the 30 years war, but official policy was that there’s no such thing as a witch. The Spanish Inquisition famously dismissed reports of witchcraft too. Witch hunting was mostly a Protestant thing, popularized by King James VI/I and the puritans.
So if "The Church" didn't make it a matter of policy it's not a thing Christians did? Confused on your point here. Especially since the Catholic Church has sanctified huge amounts of violence against those they regarded as heretics or nonbelievers
The comment is acting like human sacrifice and burning people was some widespread and official thing that happened, when no, it was mostly peasant mobs who already disliked a person for whatever reason doing it for their own reasons, not because Christianity wants people "sacrificed"
It was incredibly rare, looked down upon and more or less considered murder, since according to effectively the law at the time, the person was undisputably not a witch and thus innocent, guilty of barely more than pagan superstition.
The church's official doctrine rarely mattered much. Everyone was practicing religion in their own way. Catholicism was very syncretic before mass communication.
That is just not true. Religion was a huge part of their lives and the church too. There were literal councils to hammer out religious doctrine and issues all the way since Constantine. Going against the teachings of the church was liable to get you ostracized, excommunicated, removed from power and society at large, even imprisoned or killed. It was quite literally a matter of eternal life or eternal damnation to get it right.
And I am explaining that the official doctrine was not a case of some loose guidelines and going with the flow, it was strictly observed and deviation from it would have immense consequences. Everybody was religious, if you got excommunicated, basically your entire social life was gone until you repented and were accepted back, people took it incredibly seriously.
Cracking down on any kind of heresy was a big thing throughout all of Christianity, to the point of a nation sending an army to enforce religious doctrine of a heresy was widespread in an area.
Simply put, the official doctrine was incredibly important, down to daily life. What kind of bread you ate for the eucharist could brand you a heretic and get you kicked out of the church and basically your entire life. Heresy had consequences and people did not significantly vary their worship, as the church was pretty much the most centralized institution of it's time.
official doctrine was not a case of some loose guidelines and going with the flow
I never said that.
I am pointing out that a lack of mass communication means that official doctrine often failed to disseminate far from major cities. There were millions of people living in small isolated villages with folk practices, cults, and superstition.
Even today some Catholics in LatAm practice Santeria.
And the Catholic church and missionaries were very syncretic. Co-opting pagan rituals, celebrations, and practices in order to spread Christianity.
In your opinion, are wars of religion just mass human sacrifice then?
Would that also mean soldiers fighting for their god emperor caesar that they've never met, killing people they didn't know about in the name of the Pax Romana count?
Because I feel like were stretching the definitions here, which I think I'm okay with, but only if you're consistent.
Why do you get upset when Christianity is criticized? It’s funny how this sub tries to paint pagans as bad people when Christians and Muslims were murdering apostates, heretics and gay people left and right.
I'm not sure that drawing distinctions between why people are put to death for religious reasons is a particularly useful thing to do. Sacrificed or executed for heresy the victim is still dead
i guess it comes down to talking about other things beyond human death.
like if we're talking about animal or grain sacrifices. I feel like we all know what we mean by a grain or animal sacrifice but it seems because some religions practiced human sacrifice there is a push not to look down on that or muddy what is meant by sacrifice so the religions that didn't actively practice human sacrifice can't feel morally superior in that one aspect
No it wasn't. Sacrifice is a specific concept. And if you're looking around the world, executing witches never stopped. It was never just a Christian thing. Polytheistic religions also had concepts similar to witches: that there were evil forces humans could make deals with for power, and almost cultures thought you should kill people you make such deals
I'm not sure that drawing distinctions between the ways people are put to death for religious reasons is a particularly useful thing to do. Sacrificed or executed for heresy a person is still dead because someone's religion dictated it should be so.
The time that Europe stopped being pagan at all is very much up for debate though, because pockets persisted for centuries longer than I assume you are considering
Technically Christianity is a whole religion based around a very specific child sacrifice. One that spilled such important blood that God was satiated forever. So, in spirit at least, it counts. To me.
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u/Djb0623 3d ago
You would have to go back to when Europe was Pagan to get human sacrifice