Yep - now we have lost the quaint practices of the South American indigenous peoples forever....
Posted on 01/23/2008 11:00:57 AM PST by SunkenCiv
The victims of human sacrifice by Mexico's ancient Mayans, who threw children into water-filled caverns, were likely boys and young men not virgin girls as previously believed, archeologists said on Tuesday... Maya priests in the city of Chichen Itza in the Yucatan peninsula sacrificed children to petition the gods for rain and fertile fields by throwing them into sacred sinkhole caves, known as "cenotes." The caves served as a source of water for the Mayans and were also thought to be an entrance to the underworld. Archeologist Guillermo de Anda from the University of Yucatan pieced together the bones of 127 bodies discovered at the bottom of one of Chichen Itza's sacred caves and found over 80 percent were likely boys between the ages of 3 and 11. The other 20 percent were mostly adult men said de Anda, who scuba dives to uncover Mayan jewels and bones. He said children were often thrown alive to their watery graves to please the Mayan rain god Chaac. Some of the children were ritually skinned or dismembered before being offered to the gods, he said... Archeologists previously believed young female virgins were sacrificed because the remains, which span from around 850 AD until the Spanish colonization, were often found adorned with jade jewelry.
(Excerpt) Read more at reuters.com ...
“The thing that justified the armed struggle against Muslims “
The thing that justified the armed struggle against the Muslims was the same thing that justified India’s struggle against the British: they were invaders and colonial masters.
“Lamb: “Praise Chac from whom all blessings flow””
The problem with your use of Christian phraseology here is that Christianity explicitly rejects not only human, but animal and even botanical sacrifice.
I’m sure you wouldn’t like to imply anything about Christianity that wasn’t strictly true.
I don’t think a little satire about religion’s “phraseology” is bad. After all, the phrases are simply something a human wrote, not the actual words of God inscribed on stone.
Isn’t Christianity all about Christ’s self-sacrifice for humanity? The sacrifice of One for the many so to speak.
And aside from the dicta of faith, if I were you, I wouldn’t want to delve too closely into the canons of liturgy and ritual that involve eating and drinking the transubstantiated body and blood of Christ.
“I don’t think a little satire about religion’s “phraseology” is bad.”
Satire is good when it sheds light on the truth; bad when it leads into error. Yours is of the latter kind.
“Isn’t Christianity all about Christ’s self-sacrifice for humanity? The sacrifice of One for the many so to speak.”
What does that have to do with error?
“I wouldn’t want to delve too closely into the canons of liturgy and ritual that involve eating and drinking the transubstantiated body and blood of Christ.”
That would explain why you have apparently refrained from delving closely enough to understand the matter.
“What does that have to do with error?”
Beats me. I didn’t bring up ‘error’ at all. You are the one who arbitrarily demonizes and consigns my satire to “error” which is merely your opinion as shaped by the teachings of your faith.
You have constructed a tautology that refuses to acknowlege any differences of opinion from your own as possibly valid. And that’s the problem I have with some religious people.
“You are the one who arbitrarily demonizes and consigns my satire to “error” which is merely your opinion as shaped by the teachings of your faith.”
Let’s review the action here…
You posted a reply to a description of the pre-Columbian religion (RE: “Here’s what we’re going to do. We’re going to force you into transvestism, then skin or dismember you, then drown you.”) by talking about “all sacrificial lambs in every culture,” then had an Indio priest saying “…you’ll go to Chac heaven,” and the person to be sacrificed replying “Praise Chac from whom all blessings flow,” thereby fleshing out your “all sacrificial lambs in every culture” remark with a specific link between the human-sacrificing Indios and Christianity.
That is your error, as my first reply to you says: “The problem with your use of Christian phraseology here is that Christianity explicitly rejects not only human, but animal and even botanical sacrifice. I’m sure you wouldn’t like to imply anything about Christianity that wasn’t strictly true.”
This is not “demonizing,” unless you regard any difference of opinion as demonizing. And it does not “consign” your satire to error, it points out that your satire is erroneous as a matter of objective fact, not as any matter of faith, but in equating a human-sacrificing religion with one that has no provisions for such sacrifices.
“You have constructed a tautology that refuses to acknowlege any differences of opinion from your own as possibly valid. And that’s the problem I have with some religious people.”
I have done no such thing. I have pointed out that you are in error when you link or equate a religion that practices human sacrifice with one that does not.
But then, don’t you really think that all religions are equally bad, or almost so? And don’t you really think that all religions are only a matter of faith, and that faith is irrational?
43 posted on 01/25/2008 1:59:03 PM MST by wildbill
It has much to do with Paganism. What you are describing has nothing to do with Yah'shua (Jesus)
b'SHEM Yah'shua
I absolutely agree with you although I’m not sure its strictly paganism. A pagan was how Christians defined those who still worshipped the gods of ancient Rome and Greece and variations of the practice are found all over the world.
However, a Melanesian warrior from Borneo today would instantly recognize the belief in (ritual) cannibalism as a way of absorbing the power or spirit of the Other. Cannibalism has never been explained by its primitive native practitioners as a palliative for hunger or protein, but rather as a spiritual joining.
“However, a Melanesian warrior from Borneo today”
You don’t understand the first tiny thing about the Sacrament of the Eucharist. You don’t have the faintest scintilla of a clue that would be large enough for a scanning electron microscope to detect.
You congratulate yourself on your superiority to those who do understand, but in fact you wallow in misprision and disinformation. Ignorance would be a step in the right direction for you.
Yep - now we have lost the quaint practices of the South American indigenous peoples forever....
“your satire is erroneous as a matter of objective fact, not as any matter of faith, but in equating a human-sacrificing religion with one that has no provisions for such sacrifices.”
You avoided my response on sacrifice as a principal canon of Christianity, eg. “Isn’t Christianity all about Christ’s self-sacrifice for humanity? The sacrifice of One for the many so to speak.”
Isn’t it a central canon of Christianity that Christ sacrificed his human self on the Cross to bear all our sins? Wasn’t this the ultimate human sacrifice that implicitly obviates all further human sacrifice?
you said: “But then, don’t you really think that all religions are equally bad, or almost so?”
Not at all. Actually I believe that religion fills an important need in humans when they consider their position in the immensity of the universe and look over into the abyss. As such, most relgions are good rather than bad.
“And don’t you really think that all religions are only a matter of faith, and that faith is irrational?”
Considering the above, I think its very rational to have religions although the forms that relgion sometimes takes to fulfill human need are irrational. Those irrational forms and rituals require faith above all, but I don’t fault those who profess them.
I just don’t want them to require me to profess them as well.
The forensic evidence is the forensic evidence. The Mayans sacrificed men and young boys. Make of it what you will.
As far as "oppressive conquerors", all of our European ancestors in the Americas in the 16th, 17th, 18th and 19th Centuries were conquerers whether they be Spanish or English.
One point to be considered is that, in the Yucatan, a large portion of the population is still Mayan Indian. Most Mexicans are, genetically, mostly Indian. On the other hand, when was the last time you ever came face to face with an American Indian from Virginia or Delaware or Pennsylvania or Massachusetts?
The Spaniards may have oppressed the Mayans but they did not almost completely wipe them off the map like the English did to the Indians of the Eastern Seaboard.
Yeah, well.. we don't want to get Chaac in a snit, do we?!?
Rodney Dangerfield: I was a water sign, hers was an Earth sign, together we made mud.
I would recommend you begin with Sahagún's General History of the Things of New Spain or Florentine Codex. Shortly after the Spanish conquered the Aztecs, Fray Bernardino de Sahagún compiled a 12-volume ethnography, "General History of the Things of New Spain or Florentine Codex". It is one of the world’s most valuable archaeological documents, providing a stunning view into the Aztecs’ polytheistic religion. It is clear from a reading that Sahagun fully understood the Aztec god Tezcatlipoca's similarity to Satan.
Other valuable sources of information include:
Arens, W The Man-Eating Myth. New York Oxford University Press (1979)
Berdan, Francis F. (2005) The Aztecs of Central Mexico: An Imperial Society. Thomson and Wadsworth
Carrasco, David. Lindsay Jones, Scott Sessions (2000)Mesoamerica’s Classic heritage, From Teotihuacan to the Aztecs University Press of Colorado
Codex Dresden(sixteenth-Century) Codex Dresden
Codex Ixtlilxochtli( sixteeth_century)Codex Ixtlilxochtli
Codex Magliabecchiano(1970) Codex Magliabecchiano,
commentary by Ferdinand Anders. Graz: Akademische Druck-u. Verlagsanstalt (originally composed: mid-sixteenth century).
Codex Mendoza (1983) Codex Mendoza, James Cooper Clark, ed., 3 vols. London Waterlow (originally composed: ca. 1541).
Diaz del Castillo, Bernal 1956. The Discovery and Conquest of Mexico. New York: Noonday
Harner M (1977) The Ecological Basis for Aztec Sacrifice. American Ethnologist. 4:117-135
Lopez Lujan, Leonardo (2000) The Offerings of the Templo Mayor. University Press of Colorado
Leon-Portilla, Miguel. 1963. Aztec Thought and Culture. University of Oklahoma Press
Reeves, Peggy. (1986) Divine Hunger. Cambridge University Press
Sagon, Eli (1974) Cannibalism; Human Aggression and cultural Form. Harper & Row
“It is clear from a reading that Sahagun fully understood the Aztec god Tezcatlipoca’s similarity to Satan.”
Tezcatlipoca *was* Satan, but that’s not the point.
I was asking for a source for your assertion that the Spaniards didn’t regard the Indios as human.
“You avoided my response on sacrifice as a principal canon of Christianity, eg. “Isn’t Christianity all about Christ’s self-sacrifice for humanity? The sacrifice of One for the many so to speak.”
I didn’t avoid it. It just never occurred to me that you were actually advancing such an, umm, theologically unsophisticated argument.
“Wasn’t this the ultimate human sacrifice that implicitly obviates all further human sacrifice?”
Saints preserve us. If it was a “human sacrifice,” then Jesus was a madman and all of Christianity is false.
The whole point is that God Himself, one Person of the Trinity, chose to become both fully man and fully God, and to repair the breach man had created between himself and God. Killing Jesus the man was insignificant. It is the Passion and Death of Jesus Christ, our Lord and our God that matters.
“Actually I believe that religion fills an important need in humans when they consider their position in the immensity of the universe and look over into the abyss. As such, most relgions are good rather than bad.”
I see.
“And don’t you really think that all religions are only a matter of faith, and that faith is irrational?”
“Considering the above, I think its very rational to have religions although the forms that relgion sometimes takes to fulfill human need are irrational. Those irrational forms and rituals require faith above all, but I don’t fault those who profess them.”
So, do you reject the notion that God actually communicates with people, and that some religions are actually based on the content of those communications?
“I just don’t want them to require me to profess them as well.”
Luckily, you live in a country established by God as a Christian country, and Christianity regards forced conversions as an oxymoron.
“The Spaniards may have oppressed the Mayans but they did not almost completely wipe them off the map like the English did to the Indians of the Eastern Seaboard.”
“But, there should also be understanding.
Smallpox and measles killed more Indians
than bullets and swords. Most of the
Indians who died had never seen a European.
The conquerors believed that tropical
forests were inexhaustible. Nor were
the Caribbean Islands a paradise; the Indians
fought among themselves and died of
their own diseases.”
http://www.heroesinamerica.org/TenHistoryLessensPG.pdf
Many of the Indians were killed by their tribal enemies, some because their European allies would not supply them with guns, while their enemies’ European allies supplied their enemies with arms.
Then, too, just seeing the overwhelming superiority of civilization took the heart out of some tribes.
Unfortunately, 1538 the pope's declarations were nullified by Spain's monarchy, which declared the pope's declaration in violation of the agreement between the monarchy and the Vatican concerning the powers of the monarchy in the Americas nd the official Spanish doctrine of a subhuman status of the indigenous peoples of the New World was further extended.
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