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Christianity

Pondering this a bit more, and leaving out large amounts of contextualizing history, one result of the Christianization first of the Roman Empire, then of Europe, then much of the world, is that sacrifice, both animal and human, disappeared from most of the world.  This applies particularly when one factors in Islam, which in my view could not have existed without Christianity.

The only area where sacrifice remains common in my understanding is South Asia.  From what I have read, it is still practiced enthusiastically at least in Bengal and Nepal.  Perhaps in parts of Africa not under Islamic control, and of course Haiti and other places which practice voodoo.  In the feast of Eid, I believe, it plays some small role in the Islamic faith, when it is combined the Hajj.

I suppose it can be asked if this is a net benefit, when our current system slaughters millions of animals a day, probably, using industrial techniques.  But there is, I think, a qualitative difference between ritual killing, and killing for food, even if our particular system alienates us from the process of food production.

And will wonder aloud why the land of vegetarians is also the land which has kept this practice.  I will wonder aloud as well, as I have before, why the land which rejects eating meat has by far the largest number of people formally rejected from society, and denied basic human rights, the Dalits.

As I have said before, the situation of most Dalits is actually arguably worse than that of blacks in the Jim Crow South.  And there are two hundred MILLION of them.

Personally, I tend to reject Large Stories.  Most of us are vastly better off trying to learn deep relaxation, the process of digesting experience, and of living peaceful productive lives and, where necessary, fighting productive lives.

If God is in me, I do not need to abase myself again before any other God, much less any human being.  Abasement is for humans, not God–and not Buddha either, for that matter.

It is perhaps a mild exaggeration to say that the civil religion of political Liberalism worships the innate dignity of all humans, but only a mild one.  We need to keep what is good in this creed, and that necessarily means opposing with all means necessary the lunatics who would bring this progress to a halt, and throw us all back a thousand years or more.