Cannibalism and Human Sacrifice

[Hand of Evil]

You know my soapbox, it is a fine one, define good and evil in your game.

Cannibalism: I can tell you the health reasons why it is a bad thing (mad cow) but I can also show you a number of moments in hstory were it was a good thing (strenght of your foe).

Human Sacrifice: Much the same.

Again I say define good and evil in your games and build your taboos around them, the biggest problem players have with alignment is that they look at them from their view not from a roleplaying view.

 

[fusangite]

As far as human sacrifice goes, though, I am not at all convinced. Yes, volunteering to be the sacrifice may be a good act, but performing the sacrifice is not. I would say that this is an evil act, though it has been frequently used in neutral societies in the past, and could conceivably be a part of a good society, or a good religion.

This really depends on the rules of the universe. Sure, you may worship and love Quetzalcoatl who doesn't want to destroy the world but you still have to make sacrifices to the Earth Monster so she won't destroy the universe. How is aiding someone who wishes to sacrifice his life in order to save the universe evil?

 

[The_Universe]

Sheesh - just because someone did something at some time, and a bunch of other people thought it was OK does make a thing Good! Or even "Not-Evil."

There's a reason that there are two axis for alignment in DnD. Law/Chaos reflects societal acceptance of an act, good or bad. Good or Evil transcends whether people *think* it's bad, to whether it *is* bad.

While I would argue that there are things in the real world that are absolutely evil, no matter their acceptance or lawfulness, I DO NOT WANT to get into that debate here.

I appreciate the effort people expend to be culturally sensitive, but c'mon! Take a stand. If these things are not evil, than nothing is - and you really need to ask yourselves (not me) if you can really think that NOTHING is evil (except perhaps thinking that something is evil ).

There can be exceptions to any standard or more - but that's not adequate reason to pretend that those standards and mores do not exist.

 

[Raven Crowking]

This really depends on the rules of the universe. Sure, you may worship and love Quetzalcoatl who doesn't want to destroy the world but you still have to make sacrifices to the Earth Monster so she won't destroy the universe. How is aiding someone who wishes to sacrifice his life in order to save the universe evil?

Something can be evil, but performed by good people because it is necessary. An evil thing can be done for good motives. An evil action can result in good.

Still evil.


RC

 

[Krieg]

If these things are not evil, than nothing is - and you really need to ask yourselves (not me) if you can really think that NOTHING is evil (except perhaps thinking that something is evil ).

Instead of shouting from a soapbox perhaps you would be better served to defend your claim that cannibalism in and of itself without regard to circumstances is definitively an evil act.

 

[Agback]

I don't see anything inherently evil about eating people who are already dead. It is not a healthy practice. And I would be too squeamish to do it myself, I think. But I don't think it is evil as such. Killing people to eat, however, is murder.

As for immolating humans as a religious ritual. Well, it looks a lot like murder to me, but I guess that in a fantasy world where the sacrifice victims really did go to a special reward in the afterworld (and were not simply duped into believing that by priests) it might not be evil.

And what about sacrificing the convicted perpetrators of heinous crimes to the god or retribution, justice, or everlasting torment? If that were done as the result of a due process of law I wouldn't consider it much different from any other form of capital punishment. Of course, some people think capital punishment is pretty evil (I have profound doubts about it myself). We needn't go into that here, I hope. But just recognising that we feel rather differently about that, this opens up the possibility that some of us might consider that there exist some circumstances under which human sacrifice is not, strictly speaking, murder.

 

[The Grumpy Celt]

I resent this tread. I suggests the RPG hobby is a haven for cannibalism, when we’ve got the problem mostly under control.

Monty Python jokes aside, it is interesting how moral relativism leads to a total lack of morality.

Combine the moral relativism of allowing people to lie to one another with the moral relativism of ritual sacrifice and the moral relativism of cannibalism means it is perfectly permissible to lie and coerce to people into allowing themselves to be sacrificed and eaten by the liar and no moral or ethical objection can be made.

This page has interesting information about cannibalism:

http://faculty.ncwc.edu/toconnor/428/428lect13.htm#cannibal

 

[Elder-Basilisk]

I don't know about the whole "willing sacrifice" deal. It seems at least partly the result of an effort by revisionist archaeologists and historians (not that revisionism is always bad) to paint the Conquistadores an even darker shade of black by cleaning up the reputation of their initial foes.

That said, are you sure that objectively necessary evil would cease to be evil? Why wouldn't it be accurate to say that, in the Mexica universe, objective evil is objectively necessary and there is no possibility of purity or enduring good? In the Illiad, Agammemnon's sacrifice of Iphigenia seemed to fit into that category. Without the sacrifice of his daughter, the fleet would not have been able to sail, and he would have been made an oathbreaker. With the sacrifice of his daughter, he stirred up the fires of justified retribution. Orestes was in an even sorrier state. He killed his mother to avenge his father and thus became a parricide and was pursued by the furies. Anyway, I think the point is clear by now (even if I somehow mangled the Illiad in my retelling): is it not possible that there could really be a no-win situation where every conceivable action would be evil or that refusing to do evil would have disastrous consequences?

In any event, human sacrifice seems much more interesting to me in an old-fashioned unambiguously evil moloch or Thuggee style. Where that gets interesting is if a society has come to expect and depend upon it. "Yes, it's evil, but that's our tradition, and it brings the favor of our gods and benefits to us--so we think up convenient excuses and paint convenient lies so that we can live with ourselves" has a certain stark reality to it that seems to be missing from a lot of D&D where people are either basically good westerners in ancient clothing or over the top evil. The everyday evil of the people who sacrifice children to assure success in war and sell their defeated enemies daughters into temple prostitution--as a part of their normal, everyday lives that also involve feasts, family, etc. presents a much more interesting dilemma than settings with rationalizations wired into them. How to deal with "maybe not really evil" is a good deal easier than how to deal with customary, convenient, and deeply ingrained evil.

But what if the characters are objectively residing in the Mexica universe where if the sacrifice does not take place, the world will be devoured by the Earth Monster and wholly destroyed? Is this not a mitigating factor? (I acknowledge the Mexica example is not ideal because they may not have had to resort to wholly unwilling victims.)

 

[Turjan]

I resent this tread. I suggests the RPG hobby is a haven for cannibalism, when we’ve got the problem mostly under control.

I don't see any hint for such a notion in this thread.

Monty Python jokes aside, it is interesting how moral relativism leads to a total lack of morality.

I also fail to see how you can draw such a conclusion out of this thread.

Combine the moral relativism of allowing people to lie to one another with the moral relativism of ritual sacrifice and the moral relativism of cannibalism means it is perfectly permissible to lie and coerce to people into allowing themselves to be sacrificed and eaten by the liar and no moral or ethical objection can be made.

This conclusion is nonsense. The moral relativism that this thread deals with has historical roots and is based in a belief system that did not have any alternative during the time it existed. Using our modern system of values on historical belief systems is not really adequate. These topics have to be seen in the moral systems of their time and culture in order to classify them as "good" or "evil". I agree though that there is no place for a general absolution of this practices, because human sacrifices consisted often of slaves or captives, which is definitely not a "good" act.

However, the point that a thread like this tries in any way to justify modern day cannibalism or human sacrifice is ridiculous. A human being of today knows modern ethics and will know that acts like this have no excuse whatsoever. Today, these practices are not a trait of a certain civilisation, but a sign of mental disorders. I suppose that everybody who reads this thread will be able to make this obvious distinction. At least I hope so .

 

[Raven Crowking]

However, the point that a thread like this tries in any way to justify modern day cannibalism or human sacrifice is ridiculous. A human being of today knows modern ethics and will know that acts like this have no excuse whatsoever. Today, these practices are not a trait of a certain civilisation, but a sign of mental disorders. I suppose that everybody who reads this thread will be able to make this obvious distinction. At least I hope so .

Hmmmm. What if you were eating something that had human DNA grafted into, but it wasn't actually human? For example, a genetically modified carrot using human DNA has been around since the 80s.


RC