Animal sacrifice

Metis

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Re: Animal sacrifice

« Reply #45 on: December 20, 2009, 07:35:23 PM »

Quote from: kwd111 on December 18, 2009, 03:40:47 PM

Thus the rational, in this democratic country, that because of religious liberty you cannot force me NOT to sacrifice a MY child (heaven forbid) because you cannot force your morality on me.

All countries force morality on its citizenry, and they're called "laws". Wink

The mindset in a democracy that deals with this that's different than in an authoritarian society is that democracy is based on the importance of the individual, the latter of which may or may not be religiously derived. Throughout most of its history, Christianity did not endorse democracy and, instead, put more of its faith in authoritarian systems. And the movement towards democracy was more a by-product of the Enlightenment, which put more emphasis on the use of reason instead of faith, along with a demand to have a separation of church and state to end oppression.

This, of course, was not just characteristic of earlier Christianity since no major religious group demanded that countries develop democracy until relatively late in our collective history.


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"The further the spiritual evolution of mankind advances, the more certain it seems to me that the path to genuine religiosity does not lie through the fear of life, and the fear of death, and blind faith, but through striving after rational knowledge."-- Einstein

River

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Re: Animal sacrifice

« Reply #46 on: March 31, 2010, 04:42:48 AM »

I became a pagan in the late 70's, about the same time when a lot of other people were going pagan, and in about 1981, I developed a group. Although after a time we called ourselves pantheists, not pagans, as we recognized that some pagans actually thought of their nature deities as real, and we didn't. We only thought of them as symbols.

Anyway after so many years, I must say that I never heard of any abuse towards animals by pagans and in fact quite the opposite. Pagans love and protect their animals, many are vegetarians, and as to sacrifice, that's not part of any paganism I ever knew, heard of, or any ritual I ever read, and I've read a lot of them and known many more. Some pagans are Wiccan, and it's the same thing with them. Animal sacrifice would be considered horrible and has no place in paganism or Wicca. I retired from my group more than 10 years ago, and while I missed our group, I was tired of doing it. We made up our own rituals and used lots of music and dance to honor the seasons. Most of our rituals were seasonal.

As to other religions, I'm not aware. I belong to the ASPCA, and I hope animal killing for ritual purposes when there's enough in the local supermarket is sick. Meat's not good for you anyway.


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Ed.W

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Re: Animal sacrifice

« Reply #47 on: April 04, 2010, 01:01:23 AM »

Quote from: kwd111 on December 18, 2009, 02:41:40 PM

If... for religious purposes, we can kill goats, why not whales? why not field mice?

Ah, logic meets politics. But actually it's still logical. Or, at least, predictable that there would be a vague rule against eating your own kind...


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John T Mainer

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Re: Animal sacrifice

« Reply #48 on: April 04, 2010, 01:32:52 PM »

I'm still trying to wrap my mind around why its OK to slaughter animals commercially with callous disregard and waste, but not with care and reverence and all diligence to assure that not one drop of blood, not one hoof, horn, sinew, feather or part is wasted?

Commercial slaughter is about commercially useful products, whatever is uneconomical to use is discarded. For a Heathen sacrifice is the renewal of a covenant, an acceptance of the blood debt incurred by a life that must sustain itself on death, and pledge to ever be worthy of that price, and take no more than needed. Waste in sacrifice is abomination and sacrilege, as is suffering of the sacrificial animal.

Far higher than the standards imposed by the laws that govern our food preparation and animal welfare, the gods demand our best, offered without suffering or waste. All must be used for the strengthening of folk, field or flock, or the most reverent blot becomes mockery and sacrilege. Honestly choosing commercially prepared meat over Asatru sacrifice is a bit like saying you still want it killed, but you wont stand for thanking it, demand much of it gets thrown away, and by the way could somebody paint it red and wrap it in plastic first?

And they say we are odd........go figure.


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