SACRIFICE [Professors say Gibson's Apocalypto is biased against Mayan bloodletting]

Newsweek ^ | December 5, 2006 | Newsweek

[freedomdefender]

Let's get right to the point, shall we? About halfway through Mel Gibson's movie "Apocalypto," which opens this week, viewers are treated to a stomach-turning scene of human sacrifice, set in a Mayan city around 1500. It's not revealing too much to say that the movie's hero is captured by a gang of marauders, bound, marched through the jungle, painted blue, and forced to the top of a pyramid where heads roll.

In a smaller version of the outrage and skepticism that preceded the opening of "The Passion of the Christ"—is it historically accurate? is it anti-Semitic?—scholars who study the ancient Maya are concerned that Gibson's film will distort the great civilization and demean its descendents, six million of whom still live in Central America. Yes, the Maya sacrificed humans to the gods, but these rituals were part of a complex worldview: the Maya believed that their bodies, their blood, were created by the gods and that they occasionally needed to repay this debt with human life. "The gods need you," explains David Carrasco, professor of religious history at Harvard. "They depend on human life for their own existence, there's this kind of reciprocity." In sacrifice, he adds, the people are becoming like gods. Based on the trailer, Carrasco believes that Gibson has made the Maya into "Slashers," and their society a "Hypermasculine fantasy."

[El Cid]

...scholars who study the ancient Maya are concerned that Gibson's film will distort the great civilization and demean its descendents, ... Yes, the Maya sacrificed humans to the gods, but these rituals were part of a complex worldview ...

Oh C'mon, are these academics insane? Have they talked themselves into a corner that there are absolutely no absolutes? No wrong that can't be rationalized away? The Caananites (and even the Hebrews who had forgotten God) had a 'complex worldview' that required infant sacrifice - with babies being burned in the fire to Molech...

I always thought God put it best when he responded to this abmonination in Jeremiah 32:

34 But they set their abominations in the house, which is called by my name, to defile it.
35 And they built the high places of Baal, which are in the valley of the son of Hinnom, to cause their sons and their daughters to pass through the fire unto Molech; which I commanded them not, neither came it into my mind, that they should do this abomination, to cause Judah to sin.

Think of it, this abomination never came into the mind of the infinite God who created the Universe and World... What a depraved people we can become if we don't keep our eyes on God (and His Son) - no depth is too low for us (even stumping the Creator).

Yeah, I'm sure we should sympathize with this culture's complex worldview that required human sacrifice...How Judeo-Christian centric of us not to do otherwise...

Let's call a spade a spade -- this Mayan culture forgot God (I presume their ancestors knew Him in their not so distant past), and man's natural depravity led them to vile practices. I concede that other cultures/ethnicities - not rooted in God - had similarly noxious practices; but don't ask me to acknowledge their world-view as being anything more than depraved.

[gogeo]

It's interesting that the gods always need someone else's blood.

It's all fun and games, until someone's heart gets ripped out.

[freedomdefender]

It's all fun and games, until someone's heart gets ripped out.

Apparently these profs don't have much problem with the heart-ripped-out part, either.

[freedomdefender]

Those chosen for this from within were honored and treated with great consideration and solicitude prior to the knife.

Yes, indeed, it was wonderful - prior to the knife. Kind of like asking Mrs. Lincoln, "other than that, how was the play?"

[RobbyS]

For many years, professional indians have been trying to conceal the horror that was Aztec civlization, and the less than sterling quality of the late Mayans. This is part of the story that the Spaniards were the snakes in the indian paradise.

[freedomdefender]

bump

[true_blue_texican]

Thank god they didn't put leashes on their necks and have pictures made with them -- that would 'ave been real bad! .... or make HUMAN pyramids with them!!!!

[norton]

No plastic bags,
No skivvies,
It'll pass today's review.

[wodinoneeye]

"Yep. Sad but true...Gibson is flat out nuts. Just wait until you see the preview to this movie, Guennie. You will be horrified, and it only hints at the graphic parts.
I won't be seeing any more of his movies."


But then 'Saving Private Ryan' was a masterpiece ????


Reality has its place sometimes.

[semaj]

SACRIFICE Professors say Gibson's Apocalypto is biased against Mayan bloodletting

Like, duh?...< / in best valley girl impersonation >

[Miss Marple]

LOL! I never saw "Saving Private Ryan."

As you can tell, I am not a big moviegoer.

As far as reality, I am not sure "Apocolypto" falls into that category.

As I said earlier, I am only giving my opinion on Gibson's work. I am not trying to dissuade anyone else from seeing this.

[justshutupandtakeit]

You act as though I approve of these things merely because I try and explain how the Maya and Aztecs thought of them.
Why would you do that?

[justshutupandtakeit]

How does a professor attempting to explain this culture get turned into someone who is claimed is defending it or not recognizing its evil? The FACTS he states are not defenses. What he said about the Mayans is TRUE.

Does that Anthropologist who explains the Voodoo cult automatically become its justifier? Or the Classicist explain Iphigenia's death at the hands of her father defend human sacrifice or killing children?

[freedomdefender]

The FACTS he states are not defenses.

If we're talking about the professor who says the human sacrifice was part of a "complex world view," then, yes, he is offering a form of defense. A stupid defense, but a defense nevertheless. (Stupid, in part because there isn't anything very "complex" in the idea that you have to kill somebody in order to appease a god. That "idea" can be explained in one sentence. Stupid, too, because it isn't an argument that makes the ancient Maya look any less savage, in fact it underscores their savagery. Human sacrifice is the very definition of savagery.)

[justshutupandtakeit]

Even savages have complex world views at times that fact does not justify anything. And a society as advanced as the Maya and Aztec is anything but savage. Their urban development was far ahead of anything in Europe at the time. Not to mention their astonomical knowledge.

Correctly describing Marxism as a complex economic theory does not make it right or moral or anything else.

If you actually study the theory behind the Nazi persecution of the Jews it is very complex far more than merely blaming the Jews for Germany's problems. And stating that it is complex is in NO way a defense of mass murder.

But I understand how desirable it is for some to make knee jerk attacks on the Leftwing scum who populate our universities. One can hardly find a more loathesome crew.

[El Cid]

I think we're just going to have to go our opposite ways in disagreement on this one. At least we're in agreement on one thing: 'One can hardly find a more loathsome crew than those tenured educators in our universities (with a few notable exceptions)'; but let me restate why I was appalled at the Professor's comments.
First, his quote:

Yes, the Maya sacrificed humans to the gods, but these rituals were part of a complex worldview: the Maya believed that their bodies, their blood, were created by the gods and that they occasionally needed to repay this debt with human life. "The gods need you," explains David Carrasco, professor of religious history at Harvard. "They depend on human life for their own existence, there's this kind of reciprocity." In sacrifice, he adds, the people are becoming like gods.

Now my deconstruction:
You get the classic "Yes, ... but" defense.
I hate that defense. I know someone is going to try and bamboozle me with soft words. We hear this when CAIR talks about islamic terrorists, and we hear this almost any time the ACLU opens its mouth. Its the subtle movement away from absolutes. 'Sure, Culture X skinned babies alive, but they were really quite advanced in many ways, and what seems to us to be cruel torture, in reality was based on a very complex philosophy ... blah ... blah, and blah blah...

Now the good professor doesn't actually go out and defend the acts of human sacrifice -- however he leads the reader along the path of acquiescence to the idea that these viewpoints are defensible. He plants the seed in the readers mind that this was a complex society (and ...'who am I to judge').
There is a pervasive movement in our culture to champion the idea that there are NO absolutes:
'Who are we to judge?'.
'You are looking at things from a narrow Christian viewpoint'...
We have to understand that evil will always attack the doctrines of light (the Bible) -- and deadening one's sensitivities to evil is one such approach.
I hold to my original statement: A culture that has forgotten God will fall into incomprehensible depths of wickedness. Evil is evil -- and no amount of 'buts' are going to change that fact.

[SaltyJoe]

"I'm sure the Mayans are deeply offended."

Only those who love sin and death. The rest have converted to Christianity...and don't look back.

[SaltyJoe]

"It's interesting that the gods always need someone else's blood."

It's even more interesting, in fact glorious, that Jesus offers His own Blood!

[SaltyJoe]

Cannibalism is alive and well in this Hemisphere.

That spirit, not of God, who influenced Mayan/Aztec human sacrifice is the same spirit hard at work to eat you today.

Some who have an interest in "know thy enemy" (like me) have a keen interest in this type of CULTure because my ancestors escaped it. Please don't fall asleep unless you want to change your name to "appetizer" or "main entre"...or "browardchad--with a white wine sauce" (Monty Python reference).

MS-13 and other such local hemisphere gangs try to resurrect the spirit of their criminal cult. They are as menacing to mankind as any other terror.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mara_Salvatrucha.jpg

American pop culture perpetuates violence similar to how our abortion on demand has be popularized globally.

Above is the rival Mara 18 gangmember (wounded after an encouter with MS13 fight resulting in murders). Hard to tell the difference, right?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/18th_Street_gang

Mara18

[Hildy]

Sick fascination with violence? Sounds like 60% of the directors in Hollywood.