Carving up children

[dreamer_easy]

I've been searching vainly through my LJ for the discussion of C.S. Lewis' "filthy quislings" quote. Forgive me if I'm going back over ground we've collectively covered. Here's the oft-quoted paragraph again:

"If we really thought that there were people going around who had sold themselves to the devil and received supernatural powers from him and in return and were using these powers to kill their neighbors or drive them mad... surely we would all agree that if anyone deserved the death penalty, then these filthy quislings did."

Anyway, I was pondering the ghastly ancient practice of sacrificing children, one which Hebrew prophets accused their own theologically meandering people of adopting from their neighbours. As I commented to synaesthete7, if Jeremiah et al had merely accused the dirty Pagans of killing their own children, I'd take it with a huge grain of salt; pretty much everyone is accused of that by religious rivals. Accusing his own side is more convincing. And in the end, the archaeological evidence clinches it - there really was child sacrifice in places such as Carthage.

How do I get to Lewis from there? Because my eye ran over something which explained that the Carthagians may have only used child sacrifice as a last resort, in an emergency - perhaps a famine. (That was the case with the young women killed and mummified by the Inca.) If that was true, if it wasn't just out of greed or mindless tradition, if they really thought that sacrificing a child would save their community - perhaps thousands of lives - then what does that do to our perception of the morality of their act?

Now the last thing I want to argue is that slaughtering babies on the altar could somehow be right. But as soon as I tried to bend my neurons into the slaughterers' perspective, the Lewis quote popped right into my head.

Now where I found the Lewis quote this time was in an essay on Wicca which prefaced it thus: "...it should also be noted that the real problem with [the historical] witch hunts is more factual than theological." This made me think about the prophetic denunciation of child sacrifice in Jeremiah 7. A modern reader like me sees a moral gulf between murder or adultery, and idol worship; between offering cakes and offering children. But for Jeremiah, these are equally wrong, equally forbidden by God; it seems to be the worship of other deities which enrages God, more than human wickedness. For me, sacrificing children is abominable in the modern sense, evil and revolting; to Jeremiah it's abominable in the older sense, ritually unclean, offensive to God. Which brings me back to the old philosophers' question: is it moral because God commands it, or does God command it because it's moral?

The above is rather incoherent... in fact, I think you're listening to me think out loud.

Comments

[jblum.livejournal.com]

My response to the oft-quoted paragraph is, no, even then I wouldn't think they deserved the death penalty. Imprisonment, banishment, social punishments for real crimes against society... but even by a standard as harsh as a life for a life, you have to take a step further to reach "a life for turning your neighbor into a newt".

And to apply Lewis-style pseudo-logic to it... if the devil were real and these people had sold their soul to him, then they were already guaranteed a punishment far greater than anything we could mete out on Earth. If they're facing an eternity of torment, then any mere hours or months of torture and painful death which we could inflict would be positively redundant.

When it comes to the reality of child sacrifice, though, for me the biggest stumbling block is, at what point do you think this makes sense? The same headspace problem I have with the various Aztec pierce-your-sensitive-bits-with-thorns rituals: how on Earth can a person popularize a tradition like that? I just can't wrap my head around the mindset which would lead to such a conclusion, or accept it. "Sex is good for the crops" or "Sex is bad for the crops", sure... since people engage in this activity fairly frequently, I can see how people might think they're observing a connection. But if you don't kill your kids as a matter of course, what makes you decide that this would be a thing to try to end the famine?

[issi-noho.livejournal.com]

Carthaginian child sacrifice: a brief summary of the arguments (http://www.channel4.com/history/microsites/C/carthage/carthage_life.html#child_sacrifice).

[jenavira.livejournal.com]

Oh, C.S. Lewis. I have such conflicting feelings towards him. On the one hand, he loves old mythologies passionately and deeply and much in the same way I do, only he can articulate it better -- I just read That Hideous Strength for a mythology class, and the first description of the Director (who is assuredly a Christ figure, but who has been introduced, at this point, as a Mr Fisher-King) makes my heart glow. But then he moves on to doing things like resurrecting Merlin and informing him that while it was acceptable in the fifth century to be communing with nature, that sort of thing just isn't done any more.

I admire the completeness of his belief. I just don't like what he does with it sometimes.

[kateorman.livejournal.com]

I've got to confess that, despite his sincerity and eloquence, Lewis is one of the worst arguers I've ever encountered. In my posting, though, I'm really just using his oft-quoted remark as a springboard for my own ragged theological thinking.

[kateorman.livejournal.com]

That is fascinating - thanks! I'll try to grab Civilizations of the ANE next week and summarise their take on it here.

[kateorman.livejournal.com]

how on Earth can a person popularize a tradition like that?

"Here, Tecetl, stick this cactus thorn through your you-know-what."
"Uh-huh. Sure, dad."
"Never did me any harm! Made me the man I am today!" etc

Seriously, I can only imagine that when you're obsessed with breeding - as a matter of survival and/or prosperity - and particularly obsessed with producing sons, then your own son, especially your firstborn son, must seem like the most precious possible offering.

(Short of your own life, that is, you fuckers.)

[acelightning.livejournal.com]

[drhoz.livejournal.com]

alas, whatever God demands is, ipso facto, moral.

Because he's a JUST god.

(and if you can read that without laughing or crying, you're a stronger man than I)

[kateorman.livejournal.com]

Why did God install a moral compass in us which doesn't always point in the same direction as His revealed will?

[kateorman.livejournal.com]

I get the impression from Jeremiah that Yahweh is royally pissed off because he's done a bunch of stuff for His people, and they're ingrates, so he's withdrawing his favour. (Like any ANE deity, he needs regular stroking.)

I was drunkenly lecturing Jon on the ram in the thicket last night - the story says that although we'll do anything God requires of us, He does not require us to sacrifice children. If as some scholars think it's a way of ridding the culture of human sacrifice, it's quite a positive thing - it's just that it's difficult for a modern mind to accept that the obedience part is virtuous. (There's a fairly lame SF story along these lines called Final Version in which God embraces an uppity Adam and Eve.)

[stephen-dedman.livejournal.com]

This is exactly how female genital mutilation is propagated in communities that still practice it: the ones who seem to be most vocal and adamant about continuing the tradition are the grandmothers.

Speaking of Aztecs and child sacrifice, an article I read recently on the archaeological suggested that (i) while it definitely happened, the Spanish exaggerated the incidence by a few factors of ten, and (ii) the bones of the victims show congenital defects, many of which would have caused chronic agony. So it may have been a form of euthanasia and/or eugenics, by a society notoriously short of protein. However, I don't know of any archaeological evidence for the Spanish claim that Aztec soldiers included roasted babies in their field rations.

[stephen-dedman.livejournal.com]

Except, IMHO, for some of the material in The Screwtape Letters - possibly because the tone of those is so unlike Lewis's usual.

[acelightning.livejournal.com]

[kateorman.livejournal.com]

The Isaac example is unnerving, but what are the other similar "tests of faith" you're thinking of?

[acelightning.livejournal.com]

[kateorman.livejournal.com]

They do die, you know!

[infinitarian.livejournal.com]

> I've got to confess that, despite his sincerity and eloquence, Lewis is one of the worst arguers I've ever encountered.

He really is -- despite his training in logic and the socratic method, his arguments have holes in them you could drive a camel through.

Unfortunately, given his keen ability to spot flaws in other people's arguments, it's difficult to believe he wasn't aware of this and either simplifying for the sake of the plebs, or glossing over the flaws because he thought he might save a few more souls that way. Either way, it makes it difficult to respect his intellectual honesty (or his foresight, given the way people tend to react to discovering they've been lied to).

As soon as he lets his imagination take hold of him, though -- and that includes Screwtape, as well as some of his literary criticism -- he can become incredibly persuasive. He really was a far worse apologist, and a better writer of fantasy, than he's usually given credit for.

[acelightning.livejournal.com]

[kateorman.livejournal.com]

You're quite right - that's Gen 2:17 in he KJV. The NIV gives " for when you eat of it you will surely die", which may be a better translation, but could also be a retcon. :-)

[drhoz.livejournal.com]

same reason we have bad backs, bad teeth, bad knees and idiotic eye design - it was a rush job before the weekend.

[murasaki-1966.livejournal.com]

Have you read Wilfred Owen's take on this?

The Parable of the Old Man and the Young

So Abram rose, and clave the wood, and went,
And took the fire with him, and a knife.
And as they sojourned both of them together,
Issac, the first-born spake and said, My Father,
Behold the preparations, the fire and iron,
But where the lamb for this burnt offering?
Then Abram bound the youth with belts and straps,
And builded parapets and trenches there.
And stretched forth the knife to slay his son.
When lo! an angel called him out of heaven,
Saying, Lay not a hand upon the lad,
Neither do anything to him. Behold,
A ram, caught in a thicket by its horns;
Offer the Ram of Pride instead of him.
But the old man would not do so, but slew his son,
And half the seed of Europe, one by one.

-- Wilfred Owen

[acelightning.livejournal.com]

[kateorman.livejournal.com]

*covers her face*

[purplepooka.livejournal.com]

"if they really thought that sacrificing a child would save their community - perhaps thousands of lives - then what does that do to our perception of the morality of their act?"

Explored in 'The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas' by Ursula LeGuin. A Utopian society in which everyone is happy and fulfilled in every way, but everybody knows that the continuation of this state relies on the unending pain and abject misery of one innocent child. The metaphor's a critique of capitalism, but you could use it literally in this situation. The price is not "this life for those", but the knowledge that the life is being deliberately taken for your benefit. Merely surviving the famine puts blood on your hands - that's the real price.
All gods everywhere are fucking with our minds.

[kateorman.livejournal.com]

I wonder if the only way the grandmothers can live with the horrible thing that was done to them is to insist it's really truly necessary and important.

(You wouldn't happen to have a link or cite for that Aztec article, would you?)

[pedanther]

And to apply Lewis-style pseudo-logic to it... if the devil were real and these people had sold their soul to him, then they were already guaranteed a punishment far greater than anything we could mete out on Earth.

That could be twisted into an argument for the death penalty, thus: If these people will receive their real punishment after their death, then the quicker they become dead the better.

[stephen-dedman.livejournal.com]

Took a while to retrace my steps, but here are the links:

http://www.livescience.com/history/human_sacrifice_050123.html

(It's interesting that the children were sacrificed during a drought: tradition has it that crying children were sacrificed to Tlaloc, the rain god, and it's not difficult to imagine how that connection was made.)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_sacrifice_in_Aztec_culture

[kateorman.livejournal.com]

Ta for that!

I remember an explanation for the exaggerated 80,000 number for that big sacrifice at the Templo Mayor in 1497 - it was a misreading of the Aztec number system; a Codex stated the number was 20,000. Which still took four days and left the city stinking unbearably of gore.

[stephen-dedman.livejournal.com]

I've also read that the Aztecs may have exaggerated the numbers of prisoners of war sacrificed, to make their victories seem more impressive, and that these figures were further inflated by the clerics who accompanied the conquistadores to make the Aztec religion seem even more evil.

[kateorman.livejournal.com]

In fact it was just the Temple janitor who tripped and fell down the steps one day, and the story snowballed from there!