"Human sacrifice" and newsworthiness
In one of my replies in the thread Grandmothers arrested over 'satanic sex abuse' on "satanicnews," I wrote:
I do not deny that human sacrifice exists. However, it exists in the context of religious and magical worldviews that are largely (though not completely) extinct (unless you stretch the definition of "human sacrifice" to include things like religious wars, religiously motivated terrorism, and executions).
Satanism, on the other hand, is inherently post-Christian, or at least post-Abrahamic. Satanism necessarily involves reinterpretations of the Christian/Abrahamic figure of "Satan." (By the way, I don't define "Satanism" as narrowly as some folks do, e.g. by limiting that term of LaVeyan Satanism. To me a "Satanist" is anyone with a favorable view of Satan.)
Because Satanism necessarily post-dates the Abrahamic religions, most Satanists, of whatever stripe, are simply not in touch with the ancient magical and religious worldviews that necessitated human sacrifice. Ditto for most modern Pagans and occultists, whose beliefs are likewise post-Christian, even though they do pride themselves on drawing from more ancient roots. Of course, even Christianity does preserve the idea of human sacrifice in symbolic form (e.g. the Eucharist). However, by the time of the Roman Empire, most of the civilized world (not just the Abrahamic religions) had pretty much left human sacrifice behind.
iteration_x replied:
>>Because Satanism necessarily post-dates the Abrahamic religions
Satan the Being predates human history, and if you accept Satan as the god of the world it is nonsense to assert that he waited until after the common era to exert his influence on the planet and the human mind.
>>...largely extinct
ok, I will post more and I will change your mind from "largely extinct" to "frighteningly common"
I've decided to reply here:
Yes, "Satan the Being" most likely pre-dates the common era, but the history of religious beliefs is another matter. My point is that religion in general, for the most part, has evolved away from the kinds of belief systems that prescribed human sacrifice. (By the way, there is plenty of evidence in the Bible that the worshipers of Yahweh once routinely performed human sacrifice. Obviously they don't anymore, except for the symbolic divine/human sacrifice of the Eucharist.) If people in any pre-Abrahamic religions revered the same entity known today as "Satan," they would have called Him by a different name, and these religions would have been in many ways quite different from any form of Satanism that exists today.
As for your collection of news stories about human sacrifice, last year I put together quite a collection of news stories about Human sacrifice today too. But these stories certainly do not prove that human sacrifice is commonplace. They merely prove that these particular crimes were considered newsworthy. But I'm not aware of any good reason to believe that human sacrifices constitute more than a tiny fraction of the many more murders that are committed daily, most of which are not considered newsworthy. As a well-known journalists' adage puts it, "Dog bites man? Not news. Man bites dog? That's news."
I'll add that some of your news stories do not even seem to be about "human sacrifice" at all, really. Some of them just seem to be about crazy killers. To me, there's a big difference between a human sacrifice and someone who just kills for the heck of it, or because they're just nuts. Human sacrifice, properly speaking, means killing someone in the context of a religious or magical ritual, for the specific purpose of propitiating some god or spirit or accomplishing some desired magical result. However, if you're going to stretch the definition of "human sacrifice" to include other things, then you might as well include things like religious wars, religiously motivated terrorism as well, and the killing of heretics, in which case both Christianity and Islam have a long history of human sacrifice. But that's not what most people mean by "human sacrifice."
I'll comment later on some of the individual stories you posted.
I do not deny that human sacrifice exists. However, it exists in the context of religious and magical worldviews that are largely (though not completely) extinct (unless you stretch the definition of "human sacrifice" to include things like religious wars, religiously motivated terrorism, and executions).
Satanism, on the other hand, is inherently post-Christian, or at least post-Abrahamic. Satanism necessarily involves reinterpretations of the Christian/Abrahamic figure of "Satan." (By the way, I don't define "Satanism" as narrowly as some folks do, e.g. by limiting that term of LaVeyan Satanism. To me a "Satanist" is anyone with a favorable view of Satan.)
Because Satanism necessarily post-dates the Abrahamic religions, most Satanists, of whatever stripe, are simply not in touch with the ancient magical and religious worldviews that necessitated human sacrifice. Ditto for most modern Pagans and occultists, whose beliefs are likewise post-Christian, even though they do pride themselves on drawing from more ancient roots. Of course, even Christianity does preserve the idea of human sacrifice in symbolic form (e.g. the Eucharist). However, by the time of the Roman Empire, most of the civilized world (not just the Abrahamic religions) had pretty much left human sacrifice behind.
iteration_x replied:
>>Because Satanism necessarily post-dates the Abrahamic religions
Satan the Being predates human history, and if you accept Satan as the god of the world it is nonsense to assert that he waited until after the common era to exert his influence on the planet and the human mind.
>>...largely extinct
ok, I will post more and I will change your mind from "largely extinct" to "frighteningly common"
I've decided to reply here:
Yes, "Satan the Being" most likely pre-dates the common era, but the history of religious beliefs is another matter. My point is that religion in general, for the most part, has evolved away from the kinds of belief systems that prescribed human sacrifice. (By the way, there is plenty of evidence in the Bible that the worshipers of Yahweh once routinely performed human sacrifice. Obviously they don't anymore, except for the symbolic divine/human sacrifice of the Eucharist.) If people in any pre-Abrahamic religions revered the same entity known today as "Satan," they would have called Him by a different name, and these religions would have been in many ways quite different from any form of Satanism that exists today.
As for your collection of news stories about human sacrifice, last year I put together quite a collection of news stories about Human sacrifice today too. But these stories certainly do not prove that human sacrifice is commonplace. They merely prove that these particular crimes were considered newsworthy. But I'm not aware of any good reason to believe that human sacrifices constitute more than a tiny fraction of the many more murders that are committed daily, most of which are not considered newsworthy. As a well-known journalists' adage puts it, "Dog bites man? Not news. Man bites dog? That's news."
I'll add that some of your news stories do not even seem to be about "human sacrifice" at all, really. Some of them just seem to be about crazy killers. To me, there's a big difference between a human sacrifice and someone who just kills for the heck of it, or because they're just nuts. Human sacrifice, properly speaking, means killing someone in the context of a religious or magical ritual, for the specific purpose of propitiating some god or spirit or accomplishing some desired magical result. However, if you're going to stretch the definition of "human sacrifice" to include other things, then you might as well include things like religious wars, religiously motivated terrorism as well, and the killing of heretics, in which case both Christianity and Islam have a long history of human sacrifice. But that's not what most people mean by "human sacrifice."
I'll comment later on some of the individual stories you posted.