Authentic Religion and Human Sacrifice

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Bubba_Switzler

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Recently, Pope Francis declared that “every authentic practice of religion cannot fail to promote peace.”

So I wanted to pose the question: does human sacrifice promote peace or is human sacrifice an inauthentic religious practice?

It is a historical fact that many pre-Chrisitan religions practiced human sacrifice. Judaism was one of the first religions to prohibit it. The most famous example was the Aztecs but the pracice was, in fact, quite common in ancient times, hence the Jewish prohibition. (See en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_sacrifice#History_by_region).

What would it mean to practice the Aztec religion authenticly?
 
Bubba_Switzler said:
Recently, Pope Francis declared that “every authentic practice of religion cannot fail to promote peace.”

So I wanted to pose the question: does human sacrifice promote peace or is human sacrifice an inauthentic religious practice?
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If I had to guess, I would guess the pope would count human sacrifice as authentically bad, not as authentically religious.
What would it mean to practice the Aztec religion authenticly?
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My guess: doing the good stuff and opposing the bad.
 
Your point makes it clear how irrational ecumenism is, was and always will be and why John Paul II brought great shame on his office.
 
rider2 said:
Your point makes it clear how irrational ecumenism is, was and always will be and why John Paul II brought great shame on his office.
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What do you mean by ecumenism? When I think of the word, I think of a combination of three things: (a) encouraging Catholics and non-Catholics to pray for union, (b) positive remarks from Catholics about things they hold in common with non-Catholic groups, (c) a friendly spirit toward non-Catholics that tries to assume they have good intentions, or gives them the benefit of the doubt that they are not necessarily evil people.

Is that what you think of as well? Which one of those do you think is irrational? Because I think they all have an honored place in Catholic history.
 
Bubba_Switzler said:
Recently, Pope Francis declared that “every authentic practice of religion cannot fail to promote peace.”

So I wanted to pose the question: does human sacrifice promote peace or is human sacrifice an inauthentic religious practice?

It is a historical fact that many pre-Chrisitan religions practiced human sacrifice. Judaism was one of the first religions to prohibit it. The most famous example was the Aztecs but the pracice was, in fact, quite common in ancient times, hence the Jewish prohibition. (See en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_sacrifice#History_by_region).

What would it mean to practice the Aztec religion authenticly?
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OK, I’ll bite. There are at least two different ways to understand this statement by Pope Francis, in my opinion.

You seem to understand it likes this:
  1. All religions promote peace
  2. The Aztec religion featured ritual human sacrifice
  3. ritual human sacrifice is obviously NOT peaceful
Therefore:
  1. premise 1 must be false and Pope Francis is wrong
I understood it like this:
  1. Authentic religions promote peace
  2. The Aztec religion featured ritual human sacrifice
  3. ritual human sacrifice is obviously NOT peaceful
Therefore:
  1. The Aztec religion is not authentic
In other words, the promotion of peace should be how we gauge the authenticity of a religion. The more peaceful, the more authentic.

Violence is endemic to the cult of many religions, and therefore we know that the in-authenticity is endemic and the religion itself is inauthentic.

Violence is sometimes exercised by the adherents of religions that do not appear to be inherently or intrinsically violent. In those cases, we can say that the particular practitioner of the religion is inauthentic.

So, Torquemada does not prove that Catholicism itself is an inauthentic religion. But, ritualistic and constant human sacrifice does prove the Aztec religion to be inauthentic. Osama Bin Laden does not prove that Islam is itself intrinsically inauthentic. But, infant sacrifice to Baal does prove that cult to be so.

Doesn’t Jesus say “by their fruits you shall know them?” I understand Pope Francis as saying “by their peace you shall know them.”
 
I think it’s just a platitude offered to those who say religion is the source of all wars, and violence, etc. or who justify terrorism or whatnot with religion. For one, you could promote peace by wiping out all enemies–or everyone on earth for that matter (see various sci-fi movies where some robot or computer comes to this logical conclusion). Is that “authentic religion”? Likewise, Jesus Himself said His religion could fail to bring peace due to the obstinacy and bad will of others–is His religion therefore not authentic?
Bible:
Matthew 10:[34] Do not think that I came to send peace upon earth: I came not to send peace, but the sword. [35] For I came to set a man at variance against his father, and the daughter against her mother, and the daughter in law against her mother in law.

Challoner commentary: “[35] I came to set a man at variance:” Not that this was the end or design of the coming of our Saviour; but that his coming and his doctrine would have this effect, by reason of the obstinate resistance that many would make, and of their persecuting all such as should adhere to him.
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That being said, he could also mean these two things:

By “authentic,” he could mean the true faith, if embraced by all, ultimately leads to peace. In that case, he is only talking about the Catholic faith, not other things. For example, at the Assisi peace conference, St. John Paul II said to those of various religions gathered that “in Jesus Christ, as Saviour of all, true peace is to be found.”

As for another possibility, “religion” is generally defined as "justice toward God’ or giving God His due (CCC 1807). Specifically as St. Thomas says, “to show reverence to one God under one aspect, namely, as the first principle of the creation and government of things.”

Acknowledging that one God that has created all of us and to give Him (and not idols or demons) what He is due in justice should lead those who do so to acknowledge their common origin and the fact that it is not God’s will that His creatures simply destroy each other. However, due to original sin and the various religious errors springing from it, this in itself often fails to bring peace.

So yeah, unless he was only referring to the faith of Christ–and if so, why not say it like St. John Paul II did?–it seems it’s just a platitude not intended to be deeply analyzed. 🤷
 
PumpkinCookie said:
I understood it like this:
  1. Authentic religions promote peace
  2. The Aztec religion featured ritual human sacrifice
  3. ritual human sacrifice is obviously NOT peaceful
Therefore:
  1. The Aztec religion is not authentic
In other words, the promotion of peace should be how we gauge the authenticity of a religion. The more peaceful, the more authentic.

Violence is endemic to the cult of many religions, and therefore we know that the in-authenticity is endemic and the religion itself is inauthentic.
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I think this is probably the most charitble interpretation of his words. It relies on a novel understanding of authentic religion, a Catholic Pope telling an Aztec how to practice his religion.

One way to think about this debate is to frame it historically. There are two competing theories of the history of religion:
  1. Genesis is literally true and all religious spring from a single source got corrupted somewhere along the way. And then came Abraham and Jesus.
  2. Primitive man expressed his religious impulses in various, sometimes horrible and violent, ways. Then came Abraham and Jesus.
If 1 is true then it would make sense to say that the Aztecs are doing it wrong.

If 2 is true then there is a problem trying to make that claim.

How do you determine the authenticity of a religious practice or of a religion entirely?

There is, I think, a real danger of falling into equivocation. If authenticity is going to be understood in this mannter then it cannot then be understood as meaning faithfulness to the traditional practice of the particular religon, which is how most people would understand the word.

You can’t say, Aztec human sacrifice is inauthentic, therefore the Aztec is a relgion of peace, therefore it’s ok for Aztecs to practice their traditional religion.

However, as dmar198 implied, one could avoid this whole problem by switching from “authentic” to “good”. Would anyone argue against the claim that good religious promote peace? Why clould the discussion by using the term “authentic”?
 
Thinking further on this “authenticity” idea.

If “authentic” practice of the Aztec religion is peaceful, why not assert that it is Catholic? That is to say, if an Aztec where to practice his religion “authentically” then he would get Baptized, go to Mass, etc. In other words, fully authentic Aztec is Catholic.
 
Sounds like stretching his words about religious authentic practice too much.
Besides ,they had to drug the persons for human sacrifice,it wasn t something freely chosen and who says they and her relatives had just no choice and struggled.
They apeaced their gods forcing other people as an offering…what authentic peace is there in sending others to be sacrified ?
Also he is speaking in a here and now to persons in our time when literally nobody accepts religions with human sacrifices. Today this is plain madness.
 
Bubba_Switzler said:
Thinking further on this “authenticity” idea.

If “authentic” practice of the Aztec religion is peaceful, why not assert that it is Catholic?
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My guess: you can’t call it Catholic because the Aztec religion did not know about the revealed teachings of the Bible until right about the time that the Aztec religion was destroyed. They could only get Some truths, the ones you can know by reason. The best they could do on those grounds would be to implement a kind of Natural religion in the classic sense. In the classic sense, a natural religion is one that teaches all the truths about God that can be known by natural reason: there is one Creator, people have immortal souls, we owe God good behavior, and God in His justice will punish our sins, and as a result we ought to pray for His mercy and for a savior. Those truths are what a religion would teach if it was 100% authentic and did not know about Jesus. Any admixture of error, such as human sacrifice, would be Inauthentic, and not binding on individual practitioners.

If that analysis is correct, then in classic Catholic theology, a 100% authentic Aztec believer would believe and practice all the things mentioned above, and oppose evil things like human sacrifice.
That is to say, if an Aztec where to practice his religion “authentically” then he would get Baptized
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Not necessarily. An authentic practice of natural religion would only get you so far. If someone proclaimed the Gospel to an authentic Aztec and offered him the chance to be baptized, the Aztec would need to exercise Supernatural faith, and so far he has only got Natural faith. Natural faith does not automatically lead to Supernatural faith. For that, a special grace of God would be required.
 
dmar198 said:
My guess: you can’t call it Catholic because the Aztec religion did not know about the revealed teachings of the Bible until right about the time that the Aztec religion was destroyed. They could only get Some truths, the ones you can know by reason. The best they could do on those grounds would be to implement a kind of Natural religion in the classic sense. In the classic sense, a natural religion is one that teaches all the truths about God that can be known by natural reason: there is one Creator, people have immortal souls, we owe God good behavior, and God in His justice will punish our sins, and as a result we ought to pray for His mercy and for a savior. Those truths are what a religion would teach if it was 100% authentic and did not know about Jesus. Any admixture of error, such as human sacrifice, would be Inauthentic, and not binding on individual practitioners.

If that analysis is correct, then in classic Catholic theology, a 100% authentic Aztec believer would believe and practice all the things mentioned above, and oppose evil things like human sacrifice. Not necessarily. An authentic practice of natural religion would only get you so far. If someone proclaimed the Gospel to an authentic Aztec and offered him the chance to be baptized, the Aztec would need to exercise Supernatural faith, and so far he has only got Natural faith. Natural faith does not automatically lead to Supernatural faith. For that, a special grace of God would be required.
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I agree with everything you say, up to a point. And, yet, I find it ridiculous to call Aztec a religion of peace or to say that authentic Aztec is a religion of peace.

Let’s suppose, and I think this is where we agree, that there is this possiblity of natural religion. That, through reason alone, certain religious ideas can be discovered. Among these ideas is that religion, truly conceived and correctly understood, promotes peace.

We have to be prepared, though, to say that most pre-Christian world religions failed at this to one degree or another. As I cited before, human sacrifice was endemic. And even the Hebrews had a certain element of nationalism in their religion (which was to cause them problems when Jesus came along and told them he wasn’t there to liberate them from the Romans).

We could agree, then, that Pope Francis might well be in a position to lecture Aztecs on the proper practice of (their) religion even before and apart from any effort at Christian evangilization.

Still, call this “authentic” practice of the Aztec religion seems peculiar and confusing and misleading for all the reasons that I’ve stated.

Why not, instead, drop down into a discussion of natural religion and find the common points of agreement. Find a way to argue against human sacrifice on the basis of this shared, natural religion.
 
What is religion as a word to mean that it can be authentic or inauthentic? Religion, as an idea simply means an ideology based on a particular set of creeds and or rituals, texts or priesthood, usually manifesting itself in a peoples or community.

As far as we know the Aztecs were practising their religion authentically that doesn’t mean that their religion is right for that practice, but means that it was wrong. I think Pope Francis is mistaken in his approach to religion. That statement would have made more sense in the context of Christian religion but not all religions.
 
Bubba_Switzler said:
That, through reason alone, certain religious ideas can be discovered. Among these ideas is that religion, truly conceived and correctly understood, promotes peace.
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👍

I think this is a difficult subject to discuss because of the different interpretations in defining what religion is.

I would like to think of religion as orientating yourself to God. In performing human sacrifice one can believe you are orientating yourself to God and perform ritualistic ceremonies and chants etc but if it does not bring you to God then perhaps it is unauthentic religion.

Of course for many atheists, since there is no God, this distinction cannot be made.
 
abucs said:
I think this is a difficult subject to discuss because of the different interpretations in defining what religion is.

I would like to think of religion as orientating yourself to God. In performing human sacrifice one can believe you are orientating yourself to God and perform ritualistic ceremonies and chants etc but if it does not bring you to God then perhaps it is unauthentic religion.

Of course for many atheists, since there is no God, this distinction cannot be made.
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On the one hand, atheists at times seem more opposed to religion than to the existence of God and are willing to define religion as irrational faith (opposed, of course, to reason).

On the other hand, I think some theists seem too eager to give religion a pass. And expelling human sacrifice from the history of religion is certainly one example of that.

This is why I am having a very hard time with Pope Francis’ use of the term “authentic”.

Now we can point to at least one non-Jewish religion of peace: Hinduism. (Even though we can’t be certain that it was not influenced by Judaism owing to the migration of religious ideas via trade routes.) It seems to have developed a concept of peace in parallel (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ahimsa) edging toward pacifism around 500BC.

Perhaps someone can point to a development of the natural religion through reason idea? Even in hindsight, perhaps it is possible to reason to a solitary God of love. Perhaps building on St. Thomas Aquinas works.

But I remain suspicious that this concept of God is at least partly a matter of revelation.
 
Bubba … May I ask what is a Pagan Catholic?

You asked above:

“…does human sacrifice promote peace or is human sacrifice an inauthentic religious practice?”

That’s a good question Bubba… I think several religions have sacrifice as a theme… Judaism sacrificed animals… Abraham was willing to sacrifice His son… Jesus was crucified… at the Passover… another sacrifice.

Martyrs willingly offer themselves than forsake the truth of their Faith.

Peace is also promised as you probably know…
  • Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God…
the LORD make his face to shine upon you and be gracious to you; the LORD lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace…

They will not hurt or destroy in all My holy mountain, For the earth will be full of the knowledge of the LORD As the waters cover the sea.*
 
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