jacktellslies (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
jacktellslies) wrote2008-12-27 10:04 pm
jacktellslies) wrote2008-12-27 10:04 pm
Sacrifice.
I wrote this some time ago as a comment to a friend. She suggested then that I post it here as well, and I am doing so at last.
I often wonder: if there are gods, why would they require sacrifice, and what reason would they have to care for the things that we offer them?
In some cultures, sacrifice seems to serve to encourage contact where otherwise there would be no reason for any. In some places sacrifice is specifically the price of divination, or of a successful hunt. Sometimes it seems that the gods want to be fed, and, or, the gods want to be remembered.
I have questions about what it means to feed the gods in a post-industrial society. The cultures of which I know that interacted with their gods through sacrifice seemed to have specific formulae for doing so: the gods got the best portion of the hunt, the first harvest, or they got the last of the harvest, and the things humans couldn't eat. The gods in Greece, for example, got the bones. People don't eat bones, so it was convenient for earthly bellies, but they stood for the immortal part of the animal, the true part, and thus were thought to reflect and in ways actually create the immortality of the gods. At any rate, a sacrificial exchange seems historically to have occurred between a people who laboured directly for their food, and were willing to offer a portion of that food in the hopes that they would be able to find, raise, kill, and grow more of it.
My fishcarving might place me closer to such possibilities, but not close enough for my tastes. My labour is with bones and flesh and entrails, true, but it was not my wit nor was it my skill that brought these dead things to my table. Are they mine to offer in trade for divine attentions? Perhaps. The Grecian priests didn't raise cattle, after all. But they were sanctioned by the people. The system seemed more closed, the relationship more clear. The lives of the people, their desires, the hunger of the gods, and the form the gods took in the minds of the people all reflected one another quite directly. Lacking that symmetry, I do not understand what either side expects from the other.
Of course, sacrifice doesn't seem to have lasted as long as agriculture. People continued hunting and farming through the rise and spread of Christianity. I might consider this a sort of inversion: rather than offering the gods the smoke of things uneaten and burnt in exchange for more food, the priests of that god seem to have enforced a switch. The people now were to subsist on spiritual food, sometimes to the exclusion of something real and nourishing. That god wanted prayer, praise, and purity, and had little to do with the success of the harvest. That god did care for the starving destitute, but he had little to do with the richness of the soil, with the things that the people grew there. Food became incidental, fuel for a machine, and the purpose of that machine was to pray.
I wonder if this strange modernity in which our labours are so far removed from our desires and our needs could have happened without the creation of that separation. What does filing papers have to do with a warm house or good food? What does my fishmongering have to do with my internet connection, new shoes, or the meals that I cook? With my time, my work, and my needs so distant from one another, who are the gods on whom I ought to call, and what do I have that they would want?
I often wonder: if there are gods, why would they require sacrifice, and what reason would they have to care for the things that we offer them?
In some cultures, sacrifice seems to serve to encourage contact where otherwise there would be no reason for any. In some places sacrifice is specifically the price of divination, or of a successful hunt. Sometimes it seems that the gods want to be fed, and, or, the gods want to be remembered.
I have questions about what it means to feed the gods in a post-industrial society. The cultures of which I know that interacted with their gods through sacrifice seemed to have specific formulae for doing so: the gods got the best portion of the hunt, the first harvest, or they got the last of the harvest, and the things humans couldn't eat. The gods in Greece, for example, got the bones. People don't eat bones, so it was convenient for earthly bellies, but they stood for the immortal part of the animal, the true part, and thus were thought to reflect and in ways actually create the immortality of the gods. At any rate, a sacrificial exchange seems historically to have occurred between a people who laboured directly for their food, and were willing to offer a portion of that food in the hopes that they would be able to find, raise, kill, and grow more of it.
My fishcarving might place me closer to such possibilities, but not close enough for my tastes. My labour is with bones and flesh and entrails, true, but it was not my wit nor was it my skill that brought these dead things to my table. Are they mine to offer in trade for divine attentions? Perhaps. The Grecian priests didn't raise cattle, after all. But they were sanctioned by the people. The system seemed more closed, the relationship more clear. The lives of the people, their desires, the hunger of the gods, and the form the gods took in the minds of the people all reflected one another quite directly. Lacking that symmetry, I do not understand what either side expects from the other.
Of course, sacrifice doesn't seem to have lasted as long as agriculture. People continued hunting and farming through the rise and spread of Christianity. I might consider this a sort of inversion: rather than offering the gods the smoke of things uneaten and burnt in exchange for more food, the priests of that god seem to have enforced a switch. The people now were to subsist on spiritual food, sometimes to the exclusion of something real and nourishing. That god wanted prayer, praise, and purity, and had little to do with the success of the harvest. That god did care for the starving destitute, but he had little to do with the richness of the soil, with the things that the people grew there. Food became incidental, fuel for a machine, and the purpose of that machine was to pray.
I wonder if this strange modernity in which our labours are so far removed from our desires and our needs could have happened without the creation of that separation. What does filing papers have to do with a warm house or good food? What does my fishmongering have to do with my internet connection, new shoes, or the meals that I cook? With my time, my work, and my needs so distant from one another, who are the gods on whom I ought to call, and what do I have that they would want?
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This has been the tpoic of many discussions recently, going off on tangents, sprouting other related discussions.
But no real answers.
Personally, I want to dance for the gods, it feeds my soul. Whether is feeds theirs as well, I have no idea.
I also did some baking recently--to bring to the Solstice celebration and parties beyond. I cast a circle and called the elements. I prepped and cooked "between worlds". It was a far different experience than my usual kitchen mode. It made me more aware of what I was doing, for whom and why. But again, did the gods care? Did it really made a difference?
And we always go back to what do I possibly have that the gods would want of me?
My personal belief is that if there is a god or gods, Diety is not interested in me/humankind/the universe on a personal level at all. But off doing whatever godlike things one does when is a god. Perhaps it's childish, or naive, But I enjoy the idea that there are gods, especially anthropomorphic ones, that care about me. I play that game. I know I am playing, but I don't care.
But I have been a party to magic, have experienced things that don't fit a logical explantion. So, what does that mean?
Only more questions, never any answers...
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Apparently Judaism never requires that Jews believe in god. They cannot worship any other gods, but they are not forced to accept that one. They simply must follow the laws. I've hard that Jesuits are also not made to believe. Their role is to obey the pope, to be scholars and soldiers for Christ. I like that. I'm not sure I'm any more interested in devoting my life to a set of laws or a set of ideas than I am a belief, though. My own beliefs shift and die and rise up again as I need them. I'll turn them on and off again as experiments, as tests, as amusements, and jokes. To know that you are playing, I think, is ideal.
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I'm too chaotic to devote myself to anything for long. (Marriage excluded, because I am a loyal person at heart, even to my detriment--but that's another discussion).
I'm a visual person. I use visualizations to teach dance, I use visualizations to help me in life. I like large pantheons of gods to choose from--I can choose the one that fits my needs at the time. The Divine Mother, The Wise Crone, The Protector (Brigit, Finn McCool, Lugh, Athena, Kali), My Anger personified (the harpy, Medusa, The Morrigan).
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Ha. That is funny. It makes sense. My father studied philosophy at a co-ed Jesuit school, and it had a similar effect.
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By doing certain things certain results will follow...
Who Benefits?
So, in this case, the sacrifice was not to the Lord, but commanded by the lord. The Lord is not the recipient. The Levites are.
Here's the first sacrifice in the bible.
It's kind of funny that Noah knew how to do it since the Lord only gives his rules about how to build an altar and make a sacrifice in the next book. So, this is probably a little retconing on the part of the author.
Verse 35 makes no mistake about it. It's to the Lord, but it's for Aaron and his sons. They might wave it at the Lord, but Aaron gets to eat the most delicious parts. And he gets some bread to go with it. And if there are any leftovers and the little people are hungry, too bad! If the priests can't eat it, nobody can.
It's the same game it's always been. You start a blood cult and talk about the ineffable mysteries a little bit and people are impressed, but since you're running the thing, you make sure you get the all the best stuff.
Re: Who Benefits?
Re: Who Benefits?
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Incidentally, after Machiavelli, this gives an interesting spin on the Gods who demand worship using fear and threats to obtain it.
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Niccolo Machiavelli, The Prince.
You can find explorations of this concept with more depth and subtlety in other texts, Them and Us by Arthur Deikman, for instance, but Machiavelli is the most brutal in his vision and precise in his terms.
Some people, perhaps you, would argue this is a bleak view of human nature. Personally I think that is a failure to see the point. Machiavelli was writing from a specific standpoint - a purely objective view of how power operates. Seen in that light, The Prince is a masterpiece. Whether you permit power to operate that way in your life is your choice. However, before reading that and blithely using it as an excuse to consign Machiavelli to dustbin, I suggest you consider your actions and life more closely. We all choose fear over love. It is the exception when we do not.
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