…you know, to get the best return on your sacrifice investment? Be it for power, good weather, swag, or whatever?
And no, I don’t need an answer fast. But I would like to get an idea, in case I ever conquer some place that I don’t like.
Huitzilopochtli, Aztec sun god seems an obvious choice, but that’s because of the claim that if he doesn’t get sacrificial nourishment, the world will end. Since the world hasn’t ended since his hayday, this makes me a little suspicious of the claims.
So, does anyone with a better knowledge of mythology, theology, or human resources have any thoughts?
Maybe a poll with a list of options (and perhaps a backstory on each) would get more useful replies. I couldn’t name you more than one or two and I have no idea about spellings and such.
If it matters at all, and I can’t see how it would, I had the thought just yesterday to ask why those parts of the world with the most beautiful scenery and living conditions seem to be the breeding grounds for the most extreme cultures and religions.
I’m partial to Moloch, since there are some brats in my store I wouldn’t mind sacrificing. (slight hijack: I once offered to sacrifice my cat to the Hockey Gods for a goal, does that count?)
I’m thinking Satan. Unlike most gods, he’s very open about his willingness to negotiate specific rewards for acts of worship offered to him. And no handshake deals - he’s willing to put it in writing.
A group of Jehovah’s Witnesses kept coming by. They were targeting me b/c I am deaf. (they have a very active Deaf ministry) The next time they stopped by, I called for my girl. I turned to her, and gave her a wet smootchy kiss on the mouth, and asked her " What do you think honey? Should we sacrifice them to the Great Goddess Lesbos?"
Then the Spirit of Yahweh came on Jephthah, and he passed over Gilead and Manasseh, and passed over Mizpeh of Gilead, and from Mizpeh of Gilead he passed over to the children of Ammon. Jephthah vowed a vow to Yahweh, and said, “If you will indeed deliver the children of Ammon into my hand, then it shall be, that whatever comes forth from the doors of my house to meet me, when I return in peace from the children of Ammon, it shall be Yahweh’s, and I will offer it up for a burnt offering.”
Moloch wasn’t the only one who liked some crispy baby.
(Or, more likely, the “burnt offering” ritual that was shared in the region was something like passing a baby from one person to another over a fire very quickly so that no one is hurt.)
Cthulhu! You get eaten first when he arises and destroys the world, and don’t have watch the rest of the world be destroyed! Can’t beat an offer like that!
Why would you think that? I mean, what’s your evidence that child sacrifice wasn’t child sacrifice?
And I think you’re missing the point of the story of Jephthah. The story doesn’t support your interpretation. If Jephthah is just going to pass his daughter over a fire quickly so that she won’t be hurt, he wouldn’t tear his clothes in grief and tell her that it makes him miserable, and she wouldn’t ask need to go up in the hills and weep for her virginity and that she would never have children.
The story is about a man who makes a rash vow and then suffers for it.
