“I’m sure we could find some sun worshippers or nature worshippers who don’t sacrifice any humans”
I am sure of the logic of sacrifice in all cultures: it is how you commit to the belief. In paganism, the world is full of spirits, while Judaism cleaned the world of spirits (not totally, evil ones were still supposed to exist) and forbid any cult to them: it was an early and radical disenchanting ideology.
Of course, nothing is free: monotheism moved sacrifice from the religious to the political realm: from the altar to the battlefield. I prefer the ocassional political/judicial sacrifice of monotheism over a world of spirits that can be angry and demand habitual appeasement.
Now, this is only the introductory paragrapah: the purpose of the text is to identify the modern phenomenon of political idolatry with the (often bloody) worship of essentialist identity.
Even a radical nationalism is not an idolater if he tries to maximize the welfare of the national group. But it is never like that. They are allways happy to sacrifice the nationals for the Nation. The collective subject is an Idol with its own desires and independent existence. The canonical case, of course, is Dugin: the most conscious of Aztec High Priests. He is absolutely rigth: to conjure the nation into existence an Holocaust is necessary: either you feed the God, or it dies.
I am sure of the logic of sacrifice in all cultures
You are trying to argue with the real world.
I know that idolatry doesn’t lead to human sacrifice, because there are actual idolators who don’t sacrifice humans. You are just saying “yes it does”. No it doesn’t. It’s not hard to check the real world and see if your pronouncements match reality. They do not.
“By delving into ethnographic records, the researchers tried to tease out the relationship between human sacrifice and social hierarchy. They find that the prevalence of sacrifice increased with the degree of social stratification: it occurred in 25% of cultures with little or no stratification, 37% of those with moderately stratified societies, and 67% of those that had a pronounced hierarchy.”
Human sacrifice is essential for the construction of large agrarian societies. Now, what percent of the 33% of hierarchical societies that do not practise human sacrifice are Abrahamic? It is true that the statement is not “true” in general, but is true enough for the case of “hierarchical societies”, that is, those with complex political arrangements.
Now, what percent of the 33% of hierarchical societies that do not practise human sacrifice are Abrahamic?
This is like saying “I think that Rhode Islanders are all murderers. What percentage of the people that do not murder are from Rhode Island?” This is illogical; the reasoning is backwards.
Do you think that Japan is a hierarchial society? Do you think that Japan performs human sacrifice?
“I’m sure we could find some sun worshippers or nature worshippers who don’t sacrifice any humans”
I am sure of the logic of sacrifice in all cultures: it is how you commit to the belief. In paganism, the world is full of spirits, while Judaism cleaned the world of spirits (not totally, evil ones were still supposed to exist) and forbid any cult to them: it was an early and radical disenchanting ideology.
Of course, nothing is free: monotheism moved sacrifice from the religious to the political realm: from the altar to the battlefield. I prefer the ocassional political/judicial sacrifice of monotheism over a world of spirits that can be angry and demand habitual appeasement.
Now, this is only the introductory paragrapah: the purpose of the text is to identify the modern phenomenon of political idolatry with the (often bloody) worship of essentialist identity.
Even a radical nationalism is not an idolater if he tries to maximize the welfare of the national group. But it is never like that. They are allways happy to sacrifice the nationals for the Nation. The collective subject is an Idol with its own desires and independent existence. The canonical case, of course, is Dugin: the most conscious of Aztec High Priests. He is absolutely rigth: to conjure the nation into existence an Holocaust is necessary: either you feed the God, or it dies.
You are trying to argue with the real world.
I know that idolatry doesn’t lead to human sacrifice, because there are actual idolators who don’t sacrifice humans. You are just saying “yes it does”. No it doesn’t. It’s not hard to check the real world and see if your pronouncements match reality. They do not.
https://www.nature.com/articles/nature.2016.19681
“By delving into ethnographic records, the researchers tried to tease out the relationship between human sacrifice and social hierarchy. They find that the prevalence of sacrifice increased with the degree of social stratification: it occurred in 25% of cultures with little or no stratification, 37% of those with moderately stratified societies, and 67% of those that had a pronounced hierarchy.”
Human sacrifice is essential for the construction of large agrarian societies. Now, what percent of the 33% of hierarchical societies that do not practise human sacrifice are Abrahamic? It is true that the statement is not “true” in general, but is true enough for the case of “hierarchical societies”, that is, those with complex political arrangements.
This is like saying “I think that Rhode Islanders are all murderers. What percentage of the people that do not murder are from Rhode Island?” This is illogical; the reasoning is backwards.
Do you think that Japan is a hierarchial society? Do you think that Japan performs human sacrifice?
In any case, I will remove the careless “always”.
Are you going to remove everything from the rest of the argument which depends on the “always”? Which seems to be all of it.