Comments | diane_vera: "Human sacrifice" and newsworthiness

diane_vera

"Human sacrifice" and newsworthiness

Apr 29, 2007 11:45

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 ( Read more... )

satanic panic, bible, satanism's criminal fringe, satanism, human sacrifice, abrahamic religions, crime, christianity, murder, against satanic panics

Comments 5

(The comment has been removed)

diane_vera April 30 2007, 21:06:45 UTC

iteration_x wrote:

As for newsworthiness, Satanic murders get all the press because they involve mystery and numerology and so forth, but we obviously can't quantify the number of "missing persons" who are Satanic murders, but maybe if I do more research I will be able to comment on that better.

So you admit that "Satanic murders" get a disproportionate amount of publicity? Good, we agree on SOMETHING.

Of course we don't know what happens to those missing persons who don't turn up again later (which many do). But to assume that all or most of them have been kidnapped by "Satanic murderers" -- or to assume any OTHER one specific cause for all or most missing persons, for that matter -- would just be prejudicial and paranoid. Unless there are some good clues in specific cases, we just don't know what happened to them, period.

diane_vera May 1 2007, 13:02:10 UTC

P.S. to the above: One COULD perhaps draw some tentative conclusions about the majority of still-missing people based on statistics about who those people are ( ... )

Human sacrifice in India diane_vera May 5 2007, 18:00:21 UTC

Thought I'd mention here a human sacrifice story I came across today. The following news story:

Couple burned alive for "black magic", Reuters (via Yahoo News), Thu May 3, 8:52 AM ET, HYDERABAD, India

ends with the following paragraph:

Last year, a barber in the northern state of Uttar Pradesh killed his four-year-old son by slitting his throat with a razor after the man started seeing visions of the Hindu goddess Kali demanding a sacrifice.

I suppose I need to mention here that this story does NOT prove that human sacrifice, today, is commonplace even in India. However, India does have an actual, historically known tradition of human sacrifice.

P.S. Re: Human sacrifice in India diane_vera May 5 2007, 18:11:01 UTC

Perhaps I also need to mention that the perpetrator in this story was Hindu, NOT Satanist. (But it shouldn't be taken as a reflection on all Hindus; there are many different traditions within Hinduism, only a few of which are historically known to have practiced human sacrifice.)

defining "human sacrifice" mykaelibertine October 22 2008, 18:14:16 UTC

Webster's dictionary defines sacrifice: 1) a) the act of offering the life of a person or animal, or some object, in propitiation of or homage to a deity b) something so offered 2 a) the act of giving up, destroying, permitting injury to, or foregoing something valued for the sake of something having a more pressing claim ( ... )