ullangoo wrote on Oct 8
Btw: the Islamic tradition claims that it was Ismael, Abraham's son with Hagar, that he almost sacrificed. Nowadays a sheep is sacrificed every year on the assumed day.


ullangoo wrote today at 12:29 AM
In this particular area, perhaps.

imelnychenko wrote today at 10:29 PM
"Human sacrifice was so common till 1945 in Japan;In Hebrew Biblical times there is one description that parents killed their child to feed themselves in time of extreme starvation. I think it's not uncommon for ancient people to eat their kids."I would add: "...And sent His only Son..." in Judeo-Christianity and Titans vs Tyrans in Greek-Roman tradition.Evolution of childrearing explains these phenomena. The steps are:1a. Early Infanticidal Mode (small kinship groups): This mode is characterized by high infanticide rates, maternal incest, body mutilation, child rape, tortures and emotional abandonment by parents when the child is not useful as a an erotic object or as a poison container. The father is too immature to act as a real caretaker and is emotionally absent. Prepubertal marriage of little girls is common, similar to cults like The Children of God. The schizoid personality structure of the infanticidal mode is dominated by alters, in which adults spend much of their time in ritual and magical projects, so they are not able to evolve beyond foraging and early horticultural economic levels nor beyond Big Men political organization1b. Late Infanticidal Mode (chiefdom to early states): Though infanticide rates remain high and child rape is still often routine-particularly royal and pedagogic pederasty the young child is not as much rejected by the mother, and the father begins to be involved with instruction of the older child. Child sacrifice as a guilt-reducing device for social progress is found in early states as the use of children as poison containers became more socially organized.2. Abandoning Mode (beginning with early Christianity): Once the child is thought as having a soul at birth, routine infanticide becomes emotionally difficult. Early Christians were considered odd in antiquity: "they marry like everybody else, they have children, but they do not practice the exposure of new-born babes." These Christians began Europe's two-millennia-long struggle against infanticide, replacing it with abandonment, from oblation of young children to monasteries, a more widespread use of swaddling, wetnurses if one could afford them, fosterage, wandering scholars and child servants. Child sacrifice was replaced by joining in the group-fantasy of the sacrifice of Christ, who was sent by his father as a poison container to be killed for the sins of others.3. Ambivalent Mode (beginning in the twelfth century): The twelfth century ended the oblation of children to monasteries, began child instruction manuals, began to punish child rape, expanded schooling, expanded pediatrics, saw child protection laws, and began to tolerate ambivalence-both love and hate-for the child, marking the beginnings of toleration of a child's independent rights. The child was seen less as a sinful poison container and more as soft wax or clay that could be beaten into whatever shape the parent wished. 4. Intrusive Mode (beginning in the sixteenth century): The intrusive parent began to unswaddle the child and even the wealthy began to bring up the infant themselves rather than sending it elsewhere or at least have the wetnurse come in to the home thus allowing closer emotional bonds with parents to form. 5. Socializing Mode (beginning in the eighteenth century): Obviously something new had entered the world when society could claim that "God planted this deep, this unquenchable love for her offspring in the mother's heart."During this period the number of children most women had dropped from seven or eight to three or four, long before any medical discoveries were made in limiting reproduction, because parents now wanted to be able to give more care to each child. 6. Helping Mode (beginning mid-twentieth century): The helping mode involves acknowledging that the parents' main role is to help the child reach at each stage of its life its own goals, rather than being socialized into adult goals. Parents for the first time consider raising children not a chore but a joy. Both mother and father are equally involved with the child from infancy helping him or her become a self-directed person. Children are given unconditional love, are not struck and are apologized to if yelled at under stress. From http://www.psychohistory.com/


imelnychenko wrote today at 10:31 PM
From myself: at the time of Abraham there was no psychiatry...


imelnychenko wrote today at 10:36 PM
"I think killing (and eating) children has always been extremely rare. Basic human instincts haven't changed that much."-This page of human history will (dis)approve your notion:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holodomor

ullangoo wrote today at 10:41 PM
I believe one word in about twenty of that website quote. As for "From myself": you're absolute right - and Abraham needed it.Infanticide, yes, it has been fairly common when children were deformed as birth or when the family/group couldn't feed one more or the like. Sometimes for religious reasons; some African tribes used to kill e.g. twins because they were assumed to be demons or something. That's certainly not the same as cannibalism.