animal and human sacrifice : why did that came to be ?

[ninjadanslarbretabar]

hello bluelight people

i wanna get peoples view on animal and human sacrifice
mostly from the perspective of why did we got there
all over the world for a while it was the thing to do
how did we came up with that, what did it meant, how did it justified itself ?

from what i understand its a matter of giving death to the living for the sake of giving life to the dead
the dead being the spirits or god, deities or any of that subjective stuff
and if you give life to the dead the dead should be kind or helpful to you in return

and that kinda make sense if you believe in it
but what did compel humans to believe in that ?

((well i could have stopped there but it seems like i started to answer my own question and got inspired, dont read further if you feel like tl;dr))

i guess it comes from our hunting past where we became conscious of the situation where you either kill or be killed
and in a situation where we started burying the dead and started to give meaning to life, and started to believe in a spirit world because the growth of or ability for imagination keep confronting us with supernatural phenomenon
well in that situation you can put the process of taking a animal life as a somehow morally questionable act
how do you justify that to yourself ?
you need to believe that its good to kill for your own survival

now if the spirit world is a projection of ourself then giving food, gift, animal or human sacrifice to ourself personified as god, spirits, deities...mean that we are giving to our subjective self what part of our objective self is needing or wanting

and if back in those days we didnt yet discern objective reality from subjective reality then taking the body of a animal to feed your body and taking the spirit of a animal to feed your spirit was pretty much the same thing

so that killing to feed the spirits was good because it meant survival
we did not understand the spirits as projection of ourself
we thought of them as separate entities even tho we personified them as having human preference, so we gave them human food, and if we value human life more than animal life then they must too value human life more than animal life
but that puts you in a situation where you dont get that they might have a different value system, that they might not care about human food because they dont have a fucking mouth to eat any of it, but then you would need to differentiate a spirit mouth from a physical mouth, but it doesnt seems like we had the ability to really distinguish the two at that point in time

animism seems to be the first belief we ever had
why did we believed that rocks, water and thunder had spirits ? i think like i was saying that we use to be in a state where in our evolution we did not yet differentiate objectivity from subjectivity
so that everything had a spirit because we, our own subjective self, had one, and we would transpose ourself on everything
its how self reflection started imo
we had a stronger sense of collectivity than individuality
so we did not really get that your own reality wasnt everyones reality
so the gods and spirits where a collective phenomenon

the placebo effect is about getting result because you believe youll get result
but if you know its a placebo it doesnt work
so if we thought that the spirits wasnt us we could believe that they did interact with us
so i guess that if we would collectively give sacrifice to our own collective identity we were indeed giving birth to it by giving meaning and value to what we now experience as our own individuality
we gave meaning to our own individual self by giving life to our own collective identity

which is what happened with the christian story of jesus
he was gods sacrificial lamb,
we used to give to the spirit world but then the spirit world gave back to us
a spirit personified in the flesh that we killed to save ourself from our original sin
our original sin was to eat from the tree of knowledge of good and evil ( sometimes translated as : the tree of conscience )
that gave birth to the fall of man which is about collective guilt
that would connect with what i said earlier about the morality of killing
if we started to see spirit in everything including animals, and we gave meaning and value to them, then we started to feel guilty about killing them
and jesus saved us from that, which means we can now go to heaven if we accept jesus as our savior, if we accept gods sacrifice to us,
if i put that in the perspective of a psychedelic trip well if you have guilt about all the bad things you do and are scared of their repercussion then you will have a bad trip and be sent to hell , but being free of guilt will send you to heaven where you can be one with the universe and the present moment feels eternal
"unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God"
ego "death" is needed to get there, there is no guilt if you dont associate yourself with your ego, you need to accept jesus as your savior and jesus is the logos, it aint about jesus as a physical man in the flesh, its about Christ the spirit sent from god, its about giving to the poor, feeding the hungry, giving your possession to others like they were yourself, turning the other cheek...
so if god was our own subjective creation from a still unconscious part of ourself , then through the metaphor of jesus as a sacrificial lamb we are giving back to ourself what we gave to god in the first place, which is a identity
a subjective identity on a individual level
so now sacrifice on a objective reality level become meaningless
because as jesus sacrifice himself to you you must sacrifice your ego to him
ego death or ego sacrifice is your entry ticket to the kingdom of god wonderland
so a part humanity started a new chapter in their evolution of the human psyche
the human psyche being our conscious personality
so believing in jesus became the hip new thing because i believe it gave individual a new sense of personal power, it went from a collective god to a very personal jesus where you were in control of your own sacrifice to him and not the high priest or the collective
it gave a individual connection with the world, a subjective interpretation of reality understood as being subjective to some extent, a better differentiation between objective reality and subjective reality

but then i guess most people missed the metaphor specially the church, ive always being a fan of "the kingdom of god is within" which seems like it should have freed people from the church or the idea of god as a external objective and collectively experience reality to a subjective personal within your body experience where your body is basically the church
and if you go with the idea behind the laws of thermodynamic or the Dao then if you create light on one end youll create just as much darkness on the other end because things always balance themself out
jesus message being the light and the church hierarchy of power and dogma being the darkness


well i didnt plan to talk about jesus or "sacrifice" that much time writing
but im interested in people point of view on sacrifice or on where i went with it

cheers

 

[Portillo]

When I say unto the wicked, Thou shalt surely die; and thou givest him not warning, nor speakest to warn the wicked from his wicked way, to save his life; the same wicked man shall die in his iniquity; but his blood will I require at thine hand. - Ezekiel 3:18

 

[panic in paradise]

oh boy this is a whopper thread...


i simply feel that honoring an animals or plants life, with hopes that the plant or animal is recognized by a God, is showing an up-most respect to the earth while taking from the earth, this seems a much more harmonious affair then routine farming and slaughter.

people who are blessing in such a manner what they eat, offering life of the earth as they are themselves to a higher power, would be assumable to take care of the animals, land and fruits/veggies being raised and harvested.

not that i practice these things, but fishing for salmon, the same feeling or sense of respect for the chain-of-life is there for myself. having several cattle i raised and feed, and whos life i took in the most humane thoughtful way seems ideal, personally.


Cheers

 

[ninjadanslarbretabar]

When I say unto the wicked, Thou shalt surely die; and thou givest him not warning, nor speakest to warn the wicked from his wicked way, to save his life; the same wicked man shall die in his iniquity; but his blood will I require at thine hand. - Ezekiel 3:18

Ezekiel 25-17 would have being more fun, i ended up reading the wrong quote with samuel jacksons voice...hehe

btw im not sure what you are trying to say Portillo and if i use a translation with less obscure phrasing i get this :
"When I say to the evil-doer, Death will certainly be your fate; and you give him no word of it and say nothing to make clear to the evil-doer the danger of his evil way, so that he may be safe; that same evil man will come to death in his evil-doing; but I will make you responsible for his blood."

so as a christian you need to make clear to me of the danger of my way of thinking or else you end up responsible for my sin ?
is that it ?

 

[Psyduck]

you might want to google Réne Girard + scapegoat

for example (didn't read)
- http://www.jeramyt.org/papers/girard.html
- http://www.strauss.za.com/phl/wdb_scapegoat.asp

 

[panic in paradise]

Acceptable Sacrifices

Leviticus 22

26 The LORD spoke to Moses: 27 "When an ox, sheep, or goat is born, it must remain with its mother for seven days; from the eighth day on, it will be acceptable as a gift, a fire offering to the LORD. 28 But you are not to slaughter an animal from the herd or flock on the same day as its young. 29 When you sacrifice a thank offering to the LORD, sacrifice it so that you may be accepted. 30 It is to be eaten on the same day. Do not let any of it remain until morning; I am the LORD.

give thanks, we are what we eat
accept the rights and responsibilities of God,
and be the lesser and greater equivalent of all that created.
:: this has many folds - into emotional and moral realms as well - self reliance is what is stressed ::

 

[ninjadanslarbretabar]

you might want to google Réne Girard + scapegoat

for example (didn't read)
- http://www.jeramyt.org/papers/girard.html
- http://www.strauss.za.com/phl/wdb_scapegoat.asp

thanks for the link
but i did not find the guys idea interesting or insightful
he mainly seems to talk about ritualized violence used for social order
he doesnt take into consideration non violent sacrifice, like food sacrifice, like if you pour your beer down for one of your homie who died you aint searching for a scapegoat, its out of respect, out of love, you are feeding his spirit with delicious beer
he is underground so you pour one down but it aint for his body its for his spirit, he could have being there drinking with you but he is not, but his spirit is in you and you act like his body is there too and his beer is actually being drank by him, its symbolism that represent a spiritual connection with the dead via a physical metaphor
but that guy doesnt seems to talk about the spiritual side of sacrifice and why did we end up developing a spiritual side which makes his point pretty empty imo