Once the sacrifice is finished, the sacrificial animal is often divided up and eaten. This doesn't apply to the virgin or the other human sacrifices, of coarse. That is unless you from the highlands of New Guinea. Lol

Environmental anthropology suggests that in many cultures sacrifices occur when the population is suffering from a protein deficiency. It's a way to reintroduce protein back into the diet when most needed.

For instance, in India where cattle are sacred animals. If a Brahma cow should accidently be killed, say as a result of an accident between it and a lorrie. After proper ceremonies, the animal will be butchered and shared out. In a country plagued by poverty and malnutrition, this is one way to get protein to the local population.

This is of coarse if I am remembering my lessons correctly from my anthro degree. It's been awhile.

Looking for rational explanations of irrational religious behavior seems like
an exercise in futility to me.
Sure, there can be lots of theories, but the behavior is still completely irrational,
and rooted in some sort of delusion.

I have thought about this over the years.

The oldest known foundations of religion date back to 40 to 60 thousand years ago. Artifacts from these times include what are known as impossible objects. Example; A human figure with a wolf's head. We were not top of the food chain when religious rituals began.

It was likely the case, when a herd of humans was being stalked by a pack of wolves or other predators they ditched a member so they could survive. Incidents like that could have led to the idea of sacrifice in religion. Maybe. That's my best guess.

The sacrificing of humans or animals go way back as you know. Before we understood why the ground shakes (earthquake) or why the sun disappears (eclipse) or the seasons changing or hurricanes or tornadoes. I can see where the great unwashed might think that if they were to make a sacrifice to a god or gods... Perhaps then the sun might not disappear again for a while... Or the ground may not shake again for another few years.

Then it happens. The ground shakes again or the rains come... Well... What are we going to kill this time?

I could see it happening.

And God wants to constantly being worshipped too. Oh hell it reminds me of Donald.

Sacrifice is something I always thought was weird.
Someone explained it as a catharsis: "the people who threw their sins on a goat and then drove it into the dessert to die bonded and social ties grew stronger".
Which sounds like bonding over their own hatreds of themselves, projected onto an innocent animal.
It sounds sickly and evil, but perhaps it's the truth. The two are not mutually exclusive.

My theory is; the twisted act of sacrifice is based on some primitive remnant from when we lived in the jungle and large predators hunted us. Like any prey, our ancestors ran and left the weak to die, "sacrificing" their friends and loved ones to the dark beasts who came in the night. Unless, of course, they hamstrung someone they did not like and left that monkey for the thing in the dark as a sacrifice, ensuring the survival of their family. (the weakest of the tribe are often children, which are still virgins)

Over time it probably became a ritual, when they sensed the predators coming, to injure and abandon someone so the hunter would be drawn to the isolated prey; sparing the tribe.
"He died so we could live."

Mumbo jumbu aside, the goat sacrifice is literally a goat pushed into the wilderness to be killed by predators.

It's interesting that when the gods do not demand blood, they often receive food from worshipers.

The Mayans sacrificed humans often. Why? Because they feared the dark. Probably on some instinctual level they feared the nocturnal predators and responded to it the way their ancestors did; with blood, with food for the beast. "Eat him/her! Not me!"

Meaning no offense to the religious, but that's why everybody likes Jesus, isn't it? Because we, in theory, could collectively push all the evil and suffering of the world onto him and he didn't curse us for it. Which hides the unbearable truth: Most of us would put him on the metaphorical cross anyway, if we saw that thing in the dark coming for us.
A willing sacrifice is easier on the conscience.
I think that's why it doesn't seem to matter that he only died for a few days. What matters is, for once, we didn't have to dirty our hands.
Again, just my theory.

Definition of "scapegoat." Merriam Webster. Human beings have trouble psychologically taking accountability for their own misdeeds and misfortunes. Enter the scapegoat, where you can heap all of your sins and troubles and worries. And then sacrifice it all away in the name of some unseen father figure. Neat trick!

I think it is just based on it being a symbol of dedication or commitment by giving something up. It's one thing to say "I believe in the Tree God" but it's another to give up a cow thrown off a cliff into the ocean to it. (the tree God likes its sacrifices in the ocean for some reason... Mysterious ways and stuff.)

Fear and appeasement. Lightening from a thunder storm kills someone. To the primitive mind this seems like an angry god who took a human life out of retribution for some wrong that was done. Appease the thunder-lightening god with a lamb sacrifice and maybe it lays off the humans for a while. Keep this up long enough and it eventually you get "the Lamb of God" who takes away the sins of the world.

Payment. Compensation. Remuneration.

Perhaps the greater the sacrifice, the more effective it is at placating gods.

I think sacrificing to a god was an attempt to give him/her/it something of value to you in hopes of currying the favor of the god. What could be more valuable than your own offspring demonstrating to the god your lever of submission.

OK, religion 101. Scapegoat sacrifice. As in the day of atonement when a goat was selected to go into the wilderness carrying the sins of the Isaelites. Secondly, sacrifice, whether human or animal, was a long standing practice of every human culture as a way to expiate sin. So it goes with the human sacrifice of the god/man jesus.

Well, the most likely explanation is that early men discovered that if you lose too much blood you die. This led to their associating blood with life itself. Along with that they developed superstitions and beliefs which eventually were personified into gods. Someone got the idea that they could show their gods their devotion by sacfricing their blood to them. A few accidental deaths would quickly lead to the sacrifice of animals, those that they are herding (goats, sheep, oxen) were simply the most convenient. So, it was most likely out os a sort of belief in "blood magic". In a particularly bad year, some men may have decided that the most desirable thing for them must also be most desirable to the gods, so they sacrificed a virgin to end the bad times. Some culture took to sacrificing virgins every year as a preemptive measure to prevent a bad year.

It is just my opinion, supported only by a little reading, but I think it happened along those lines, only with a lot more superstition.

The ancient jews still practiced blood sacrifice as did the Greeks and Romans. Blood magic and sacrifice was a carry over from ancient superstitions. Religions like everything else evolves over time. Remnants of old beliefs often linger. For instance hews still believe in reincarnation under certain circumstances. It is likely that at one time they wholy believed in reincarnation.

So the blood sacrifice came out of fear and superstition, bu eventually evolved as society did and eventually got left behind, and we now see remnants of older belief systems.

I told a couple of door knockers that they could just sacrifice a goat for me and one of them spoke up quickly to say that didn't work any longer. He was serious. In the OT things were burned and sacrificed to god and it was even said of burned offerings that "god liked the smell." Is this where hell came from? The best I can say is that Jesus became the sacrifice in order to fully explain his death. Ignore the sarcasm. I studied to be a preacher but those Christians just keep on making it up.

Christianity no longer follows the old laws of the nation of Israel most commonly known as the laws of Moses. Biblically, it was Abraham in his statement to the effect of "the lord with send himself as the lamb" that prophesied or brought about jesus as being the "lamb of God".

As to the old law and when there wasn't money, the sheep sacrifice was like paying a fine for violating the law. Just as legal systems as the American government require fines for payment if you violate their Masonic lodge secret religion racist devil worship government laws. These fines are evils just as many laws are made for oppression, control and capitalism slave labor.

The evil genius of the biblical theme is that Jesus paid the fine once and for all as being the lamb that was slain. So for some one to have their fine paid when they were not able then it has a psychological effect or affect of gratitude and such towards the one that paid their fine.

As to early mankind, 1000s of years ago starting this general practice of sacrifice of something is maybe just some sort of mental psychological meme that got into the psyche by some sort of mental cognition evolutionary process. In the animal world there is a lot of carnivores and omnivores. People in general are omnivores and most often carnivores. This predator mentality of take life to sustain your own may be apart of what was in the psyche of early people that didn't have a problem with taking life to sustain their own. So, a predator mentality may be, in my opinion, what could be a major contribution factor so these people could appease a "Greater" god thingie to save or sustain their life by sacrificing another life.

Only vaguely could I speculate about early people and ancestry worship. So like a father dies and his son that admired his father a lot then starts a tradition of taking some of t by e animals that was hunted to burn or barbeque for or in memory of the times the father and son had spent hunting together. So then this traditional barbecue or burning of the hunted animals in remembrance gets passed on to other generations or other groups of people.

I heard it comes from the notion of investing for the future, to voluntarily lose something now to gain in the future. The root of it was said to be the realisation by early man that using all your resources when you had them left you vulnerable in the future. So sacrifice was a form of protection against the unknown.

Just listened to a podcast on the history of human sacrifice. It was quite interesting. The podcast was Black Mass Appeal. Interestingly Satanism is one of the only religions with no historical practices of human or animal sacrifices

Religion since the dawn of human kind has always been about behavioral control and a coping mechanism. You have to tell children something when daddy dies in a mammoth hunt right? Yes the story's have evolved over these many thousands of centuries but it's still the same bullshit. Humans like to kill stuff so it's only natural it would be part of our religious idiocy as well

Hmmm...

Can I just answer "See below"?

You can't truly worship a deity without a blood sacrifice. Everybody knows that. Magical deities are very specific about this.

If their God is their Father then it would appear that he is a mean son of a bitch who must be appeased by offerings and if those offerings must be virginal then that adds a whole other incestuous aspect to the appeasement. God the all powerful monster who must be appeased and has no restraints of love.
Incredible that people choose to believe in such a hateful and heartless monster as their creator, maybe it is just a reflection of their inner selves?

Whoever came up with the virgin sacrifice was a fucking genius! It probably only took one and the remaining virgins were probably giving it away like Halloween candy.

Two words...... blind faith.

If you kill something (or accept that the deity killed something) that is important to you/them, then they have you roped.