Comments on: Mummified Child Sacrifice

By: Jools Chadwick

Jools Chadwick — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 18:57:10 +0000

If people were trying to mummify me, I’d have white hairs.

By: faithnomore

faithnomore — Mon, 08 Jun 2009 21:56:45 +0000

James, I am in awe of your post. That should be a poster, posted all over the place.

By: DarkMatter

DarkMatter — Mon, 08 Jun 2009 13:05:06 +0000

Evolution, religion, schizophrenia and the schizotypal personality
http://www.boingboing.net/2009/06/06/evolution-religion-s.html

Stanford’s Robert Sapolsky, one of the most interesting anthropologists I’ve heard lecture, gives us 90 minutes on the evolutionary basis for literal religious belief, “metamagical thinking,” schizotypal personality and so on, explaining how evolutionarily, the mild schizophrenic expression we called “schizotypal personality” have enjoyed increased reproductive opportunities.

By: Reginald Selkirk

Reginald Selkirk — Mon, 08 Jun 2009 12:57:52 +0000

Why have we not moved past this yet?

Moved past it? Catholics regularly engage in ritual cannibalism to commemorate the event.

By: Janet Greene

Janet Greene — Mon, 08 Jun 2009 10:53:14 +0000

Yeah, I guess that was pretty vague. I meant that christians have been violent almost up until the present day. We all know about historical atrocities, but recently colonization of American and Canadian Indians. Tribes were slaughtered, they were given blankets with smallpox to kill them off, and thousands of children were put in resdiential schools (in Canada) for over 100 years, where many of them died of illness and hunger. The purpose of all this? To get natural resources, and to convert the heathen. Sounds a lot like the Iraq war, doesn’t it? I guess things don’t change much, except that we don’t LITERALLY sacrifice our children to the gods.

By: wazza

wazza — Mon, 08 Jun 2009 10:39:56 +0000

I believe her point was that Europeans probably killed as many of their children as they did…

so we all suck.

By: Janet Greene

Janet Greene — Mon, 08 Jun 2009 09:52:29 +0000

I agree. As individuals and societies, we have a standard of morals, and they are not all equal. I believe that you can assess how evolved a culture is by how it treats its young, its old, and its poor. Any culture that murders children is backwards, especially since they are doing it for false reasons. Although here in North America, people still do bizarre and violent things in the name of god too. But we don’t go to this extreme (anymore).

By: Francesc

Francesc — Mon, 08 Jun 2009 09:37:14 +0000

I don’t agree with the “we can’t judge other cultures” you are implying here. A human sacrifice is a murder, no matter the culture doing it. We can try to understand them, we can try to explain the social rules that were behind those acts; but if any culture were doing that now, we should try to stop it.

By: Janet Greene

Janet Greene — Mon, 08 Jun 2009 09:03:23 +0000

Very well said.

By: Janet Greene

Janet Greene — Mon, 08 Jun 2009 08:59:20 +0000

This type of superstition is the pagan roots to the Jesus story. He was a human sacrifice to appease god. Why do so few people see the connection there? Why do christians assume that sacrifice was actually required for forgiveness of “sins”? Why have we not moved past this yet? Mark Twain wrote many years ago about how he believed humanity was finally moving past superstition. Clearly he was wrong. It is alive and well in most religions.

By: rodneyAnonymous

rodneyAnonymous — Sun, 07 Jun 2009 23:12:51 +0000

What will cultural anthropologists and ethnologists of the far future have to say about our Age?

Very optimistic of you to speculate that there will be future cultural anthropologists.

By: DarkMatter

DarkMatter — Sun, 07 Jun 2009 20:15:19 +0000

Eg. USA, Iran and Isreal.

By: James

James — Sun, 07 Jun 2009 20:03:12 +0000

I am soooo not able to parse this sentence.

By: DarkMatter

DarkMatter — Sun, 07 Jun 2009 19:54:35 +0000

The potlitical lines of friends or enemies by her abuses of the weakness of humanity drowns your voice.

By: Sunny Day

Sunny Day — Sun, 07 Jun 2009 19:09:18 +0000

The ones that raise their voices are called Volunteers.