Oh yes, there will be blood

[vovat]

When reading the second volume of Age of Bronze, I was struck by how similar the story of Agamemnon's sacrifice of his daughter Iphigenia was to the Biblical tale of Jephthah sacrificing his daughter. In both cases, due to a technicality, a war leader feels he needs to practice human sacrifice in order to achieve victory in war. Pretty messed-up accounts from societies that I don't think usually DID practice human sacrifice.

That, in turn, got me thinking about the whole notion of sacrifice as a way to curry favor with deities. The idea behind it seems to be that, if people give up things that are valuable to them, the gods will respect that, and provide good fortune in exchange. The Bible also mentions the idea of transferring the sin of the people onto animals, which doesn't seem entirely fair. The concept that I can do a bunch of bad things and then blame it on a goat kind of contradicts the idea of people being responsible for their own actions, doesn't it? But regardless of the original purpose, it seems like religions based on animal sacrifice often got to the point where the original meaning was lost, and people just decided that the gods liked blood. It's like how Jesus had to sacrifice himself because there can be no forgiveness of sins without blood. But even if this is true, why would it count if God incarnated as an avatar who shed his own blood? As I've read in several places, it's basically God sacrificing himself to himself, and why would that be a good reason to forgive anyone's sins? And with the animals, if an all-powerful being really wanted to smell animals burning, couldn't he set them on fire himself, rather than waiting for a priest to do so? The myth of the Minotaur starts out with Poseidon providing a bull to King Minos of Crete so that he could sacrifice it back to Poseidon. Why the Lord of the Sea didn't cut out the middleman isn't clear. But since Minos decided to keep the bull, maybe it wasn't that Poseidon wanted the sacrifice, so much as he wanted to see if Minos could resist temptation. I have problems with that sort of myth as well, but that's a post for another day.

Comments

[doktor-x.livejournal.com]

it's basically God sacrificing himself to himself, and why would that be a good reason to forgive anyone's sins?

Yeah…I found out early that priests and nuns and other Catholic education instructors didn’t appreciate a little kid asking such ridiculously obvious questions.. Also, if Jesus died for our sins shouldn’t that mean we’re all free and clear and hell has been shut down? Otherwise, it would seem that Jesus failed miserably..

[vovat.livejournal.com]

Jesus only died for the sins of CERTAIN people. And those are the ones who believe what they're told and don't ask questions! :P

[i3uffalogirl.livejournal.com]

Ha! Good point, I always felt the same way. You just put it so eloquently.

Btw, the Talking Heads are awesome. :)

[vovat.livejournal.com]

Ha! Good point, I always felt the same way. You just put it so eloquently.

Thanks.

Btw, the Talking Heads are awesome.

I'm still in the process of obtaining their back catalog. I just got Talking Heads '77 and Remain in Light recently.

[vilajunkie.livejournal.com]

In Classical Greek times (as opposed to when Greece was still a collection of colonies that were "primitive"), there are quite a few myths where the gods get angry at someone sacrificing a person, especially with that suggesting that the gods take part in cannibalism, as they feed on the meat of the sacrifices. See the story of Lycaon serving his son's flesh to Zeus. So that makes me wonder why Agamemnon thought it was a good idea to sacrifice his daughter.

[vovat.livejournal.com]

Well, he was following the advice of a priest from the city he intended to conquer, and the goddess he was speaking for was the rather cold-hearted Aphrodite. But still, it does seem a bit out of place.