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Sacrifice

Sacrifice is the practice of offering food, or the lives of animals or people to the gods, as an act of propitiation or worship. The term is also used metaphorically to describe selfless good deeds for others.

The theology of sacrifice, at least as it regards animal sacrifice and human sacrifice, remains an issue, not only for religions that continue to practice rituals of sacrifice, but also for those religions that have animal sacrifice in their scriptures, traditions, or histories, even if sacrifice is no longer made. It is not immediately obvious why a powerful supernatural being needs followers to offer the lives of lesser creatures on its behalf. Some explanations that have been ventured include:

Human sacrifice was practiced by many ancient cultures. People would be ritually killed in a manner that was supposed to please or appease some god or spirit.

Some occasions for human sacrifice found in multiple cultures on multiple continents include:

Some of the best known ancient human sacrifice was that practiced by various Pre-Columbian civilizations of Mesoamerica. The Aztec were particularly noted for practicing this on an unusually large scale; a human sacrifice would be made every day to aid the Sun in rising, the dedication of the great temple at Tenochtitlan was reportedly marked with the sacrificing of thousands, and there are multiple accounts of captured Conquistadores being sacrificed during the wars of the Spanish Conquest of Mexico.

Human sacrifice still happens today as an underground practice in some traditional religions, for example in muti killings. Human sacrifice is no longer officially condoned in any country, and these cases are regarded as murder.

Human sacrifice is a common theme in the religions and mythology of many cultures.

Christians believe that the death of Jesus Christ was a self-sacrifice for mankind's sins.

See also:

Further Reading

External links:

wikipedia.org dumped 2003-03-17 with terodump