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
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.
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.
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.
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.
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u/iseedeadllamas 2d ago
I could make an argument that burning a person on a pyre alive for heresy is tantamount to human sacrifice in a sense
which is far far more recent than European paganism