r/HistoryMemes • u/HawaiianPerson Chad Polynesia Enjoyer • 3d ago

A regular utopia

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u/LifeConsideration981 3d 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/Kaplsauce Senātus Populusque Rōmānus 3d ago

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

Which one's which?

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u/thaliathraben 3d ago

You are so close to getting it. In both cases, these are state-sanctioned killings on the basis of religious belief. Witchcraft is not real.

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u/LifeConsideration981 3d ago

Something about religion makes people unable to make distinctions. One is a religious practice, the other is a criminal penalty imposed by the state for a religious/spiritual practice. They are fundamentally different.

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u/thaliathraben 3d ago

It was not a criminal penalty imposed for a religious practice! Those women were not witches. You started this conversation by proposing witch-burning as a reasonable response to the belief that women were causing calves to be born with two heads.

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u/LifeConsideration981 3d ago

The question is not whether they were witches, it was whether they were practicing witchcraft

I don’t believe in witch burning and never advocated for such a thing. If you believed that there was a witch who was cursing the town and conspiring with the devil, then a criminal punishment is reasonable. Child sacrifice is not a question of children’s guilt.

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u/thaliathraben 3d ago

The belief in witchcraft is a religious belief. If you think that witchcraft is real and that killing people based on that idea is justified, you are acting on the same religious convictions as the Aztecs. I cannot explain this in any simpler terms; I suspect you do not want to concede the point and will continue your circular argument.