That Old Time Religion

Religions, like other social institutions, changed dramatically when humans started practicing agriculture and living in cities. In most cases, the religion became closely allied with that other new invention, the state. Priestly classes, and priest kings appeared. A nastier invention also seems to have sprung up very broadly at about the same time: human sacrifice. When the priests gained power, so did the gods, and with that they became greedy for blood. The practice seems to have occurred everywhere cities did: Europe, the Middle East, India, China, and the Americas. The largest scale carnage we have documented was that of the Aztecs, whose bloody warfare was carried on mainly for the purpose acquiring more victims for their sacrificial rites. Modern religions have official objurred it, but many have bloody roots. The Bible documents a couple of cases of human sacrifice, but more are mentioned. Their Semitic relatives, the Carthaginians were reputed to be big sacrificers of children.

Christianity's central narrative is that of a human sacrifice (that of Jesus), and Catholics are told that in communion they are literally eating the body and drinking the blood of Christ, even though they have been disguised as bread and wine in order to seem less icky. Muslims officially abjure human sacrifice, but the "martyrs" whose ritual murder suicides are glorified by Muslim extremists are just that.

Human sacrifice seems to have been fairly widely practiced in Africa and India (in the forms of Tantric murders and the murder/suicides of sati) until very recently, and in fact occasional occurrences still seem to happen.

So what's up with that?

We can only guess, of course, but it is here than Jared Diamond's theory might enter. The sacrifices, the glorification of martyrs and heroes, might all increase the power of the priests, and their ability to draft people into war.

We like to think that we are beyond that, but the example of the suicide bombers suggests that we are not completely. Modern religions have largely ceded that role to the state, but some of the same mechanisms still seem to be in play.

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