(April 4, 2015 at 1:46 pm)Pyrrho Wrote:Many ancients sacrificed human beings who belonged as property to the deceased master so that they could continue to serve him in the afterlife. How it came to be associated with appeasing the gods probably has something to do with the idea that people can be possessed by evil spirits, and/or the growth of crops from the earth, which was itself believed to be a deity. If cow shit isn't making my fields grow this year, maybe giving my first-born to the earth will!(April 4, 2015 at 12:24 am)Brakeman Wrote: What is with the jewish/christian fascination with bodily fluids? A google search shows that it is mentioned about 415 times in the bible. Christians are pushed to drink blood colored liquids to remind them of christ's blood, not his image, not his teachings and not his bones.
We know all about blood today. We know it sucks as a cleaning agent and won't wash shit. It works best ferrying oxygen, metabolites, and wastes to the body, no magic involved.
Why were sacrificial rites filled with blood directives?
Why does the god of the old testament think like a bronze age cave man? I wonder???
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I think it is safe to say that the people who wrote the Bible knew that blood sucked as a cleaning agent. All it would take is trying it one time and one would learn pretty fast that it does not gets one's clothes clean.
It has to do with ancient animal (and human) sacrifice. What we have are traces of older practices and beliefs imbedded in "modern" Christianity. Of course, in the Bible, there are the actual animal sacrifices, as parts of it are very old and go back to an era in which such things were commonly practiced.
Maybe someone with a better background in history can say more, but I don't think we really understand the origins of the practice, as it seems to go back into prehistory. It seems to be pretty universal, to all places of the world in which ancient people lived. So this isn't just a Judeo-Christian thing. It is found in Hinduism and many, many other ancient traditions.
That would be my guess anyway.
He who loves God cannot endeavour that God should love him in return - Baruch Spinoza
