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Ah yes and during the enlightenment who led the charge? This is such a naive comment… look at what religious cultures used to do prior to the Rome converting o

Ah yes and during the enlightenment who led the charge? This is such a naive comment… look at what religious cultures used to do prior to the Rome converting or the Aztecs in the Americas — they’d literally sacrifice humans. That was the norm prior to the dark ages. During the dark ages, they developed a wealth of technology. The challenge more had to do with the plague, famines, raids from the nords / Muslims, etc Anyway, I recommend reading some books on the topic of you’re interested. Particularly because it’s around 1/4 - 1/3 of western history (at least the history we have decently documented).

barry-cotter 4y ago
> prior to the Rome converting or the Aztecs in the Americas — they’d literally sacrifice humans. Even if you would consider the Romans to engage in explicit ritual human sacrifice they just weren’t within five orders of magnitude of the Aztecs. We have less than ten attested instances of Roman human sacrifice ever. Human sacrifice was the irreducible core of the Aztec religion. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religion_in_ancient_Rome#Human_sacrifice https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religion_in_ancient_Rome#Hum... > Human sacrifice in ancient Rome was rare but documented. After the Roman defeat at Cannae two Gauls and two Greeks were buried under the Forum Boarium, in a stone chamber "which had on a previous occasion [228 BC] also been polluted by human victims, a practice most repulsive to Roman feelings".[56] Livy avoids the word "sacrifice" in connection with this bloodless human life-offering; Plutarch does not. The rite was apparently repeated in 113 BC, preparatory to an invasion of Gaul. Its religious dimensions and purpose remain uncertain. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_sacrifice_in_Aztec_culture https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_sacrifice_in_Aztec_cul... > What the Aztec priests were referring to was a cardinal Mesoamerican belief: that a great and continuing sacrifice by the gods sustains the Universe. A strong sense of indebtedness was connected with this worldview. Indeed, nextlahualli (debt-payment) was a commonly used metaphor for human sacrifice, and, as Bernardino de Sahagún reported, it was said that the victim was someone who "gave his service". > Human sacrifice was in this sense the highest level of an entire panoply of offerings through which the Aztecs sought to repay their debt to the gods.
- napier 4y ago
  Interesting points, although I’m not sure what they have to do with European history or invention of the steam engine. I can only presume you’ve benefited from a level of liberal arts education that I sorely lack.
  - barry-cotter 4y ago
    > I can only presume you’ve benefited from a level of liberal arts education that I sorely lack. Wikipedia and the library are available to you too.
- lettergram 4y ago
  Later in history people liked to revise Roman’s history. They regularly “ritually strangulated” enemies at the alter of Saturn. There are documented cases where hundreds were strangled / executed by other means. I grant you the Aztecs seemed far more extreme, but it was also core to the Roman belief system.
napier 4y ago
[flagged]

barry-cotter 4y ago

> prior to the Rome converting or the Aztecs in the Americas — they’d literally sacrifice humans. Even if you would consider the Romans to engage in explicit ritual human sacrifice they just weren’t within five orders of magnitude of the Aztecs. We have less than ten attested instances of Roman human sacrifice ever. Human sacrifice was the irreducible core of the Aztec religion. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religion_in_ancient_Rome#Human_sacrifice https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religion_in_ancient_Rome#Hum... > Human sacrifice in ancient Rome was rare but documented. After the Roman defeat at Cannae two Gauls and two Greeks were buried under the Forum Boarium, in a stone chamber "which had on a previous occasion [228 BC] also been polluted by human victims, a practice most repulsive to Roman feelings".[56] Livy avoids the word "sacrifice" in connection with this bloodless human life-offering; Plutarch does not. The rite was apparently repeated in 113 BC, preparatory to an invasion of Gaul. Its religious dimensions and purpose remain uncertain. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_sacrifice_in_Aztec_culture https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_sacrifice_in_Aztec_cul... > What the Aztec priests were referring to was a cardinal Mesoamerican belief: that a great and continuing sacrifice by the gods sustains the Universe. A strong sense of indebtedness was connected with this worldview. Indeed, nextlahualli (debt-payment) was a commonly used metaphor for human sacrifice, and, as Bernardino de Sahagún reported, it was said that the victim was someone who "gave his service". > Human sacrifice was in this sense the highest level of an entire panoply of offerings through which the Aztecs sought to repay their debt to the gods.

napier 4y ago
Interesting points, although I’m not sure what they have to do with European history or invention of the steam engine. I can only presume you’ve benefited from a level of liberal arts education that I sorely lack.
- barry-cotter 4y ago
  > I can only presume you’ve benefited from a level of liberal arts education that I sorely lack. Wikipedia and the library are available to you too.
lettergram 4y ago
Later in history people liked to revise Roman’s history. They regularly “ritually strangulated” enemies at the alter of Saturn. There are documented cases where hundreds were strangled / executed by other means. I grant you the Aztecs seemed far more extreme, but it was also core to the Roman belief system.

napier 4y ago

[flagged]