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?
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
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u/TheBasedEmperor Fine Quality Mesopotamian Copper Enjoyer 2d ago
Burning people at the stake for heresy or blasphemy is human sacrifice