In ancient societies people sacrificed
innocent animals
(usually physically perfect) to please God(s) or to end
their guilt of doing a “sin”. The
slaughtering of a helpless,
dependent, sentient animal was pleasing to God, or
washed away the “sin (sin was defined by the society as
something you did contrary to their God’s commands)
of the person that actually did it. In
some of these
primitive societies, even innocent people were
legally murdered for the same reasons.
To us these sacrifices are cruel and unjust
acts.
In some of our present day religions there
is a belief that
sacrifice is still necessary for annulling one’s so called “sin”, or
to please God. This is a continuation
of this abhorrent practice of old.
The thought of sacrificing the so-called “God’s Son”, Jesus is
a hold over of this primitive horror.
The ritual of Communion is
upholding this practice in a symbolic way.
A God that condones these things of people is
a cruel God; a God
that doesn’t deserve people’s worship or glorification.
In our society words like “the Blood of the
Lamb”, “washed in the blood of the lamb”,
”Jesus died for us” are still used. It
is time people of our scientific world
dispense with these phrases to end for all time the abhorrent practice of
sacrifice.
Not only is it a cruel practice, but an unjust one too – if you are guilty of
some evil act than you are guilty of it; not some innocent other. For primitive
people, evil meant “evil to a God(s)”, not an “evil against a fellow creature”
as
we do today. This does not mean society
should not be understanding, compassionate,
or just when dealing with people that have done something evil.