Child sacrifice is the ritualistic killing of children in order to please, propitiate or force a god or supernatural beings in order to achieve a desired result. As such, it is a form of human sacrifice. The practice has received considerable opposition throughout history, and it has often become a target for those engaged in criticism of religion. Child sacrifice is thought to be an extreme extension of the idea that, the more important the object of sacrifice, the more devout the person giving it up is.
Archeologists have found remains of 42 children. It is alleged that these remains were sacrificed to Tlaloc (and a few to Ehécatl, Quetzalcoatl and Huitzilopochtli) in the offerings of the Great Pyramid of Tenochtitlan by the Aztecs of pre-Columbian Mexico. Human sacrifice was an everyday activity in Tenochtitlan and children were not exempt. They, in particular, were offered to Tláloc, the god of rain. Bernardino de Sahagún, a religious man left writings that describe such sacrifices, compiled from the first hand accounts of natives who had lived in Tenochtitlan in the times before it fell. Hernán Cortés himself also mentioned child sacrifices in his letters to King Carlos I of Spain.
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Author: Wikipedia
Keywords: Child sacrifice, Killing children, Offering children, Offering children to Molech, Killing babies, Baby sacrifice, Human sacrifice, Abraham sacrifices Isaac, Abraham sacrifices his son, Abraham told to kill Isaac, Slay Isaac, Binding of Isaac, Infanticide
Bible reference(s): Genesis 22:2-8, Leviticus 18:21, Leviticus 20:2, DEU 12:31, Deu 18:10, 2Ki 3:27, 2 Kings 16:3, 2 Kings 17:17, 2 Kings 21:6, 2 Kings 23:10, 2CH 28:1-3, 2CH 33:6, PSA 106:37-38, Jer 19:5, Jer 7:31, Jeremiah 32:35, Ezekiel 16:21, Ezekiel 20:26, Ezekiel 20:31, Ezekiel 23:37, Mic 6:7
Source: This article uses material from the Wikipedia article “Child sacrifice,” which is released under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share-Alike License 3.0.
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