h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Whilst I agree on the abscence of ritual killing in modern paganism, I would dispute the argument that this differentiates us from our ancient forebears.

Ancient pagan ritual most certainly did NOT always involve killing things. Most Roman sacrifices were in the form of incense burned to the gods or money given to the temple (just like the collection in church). Pre Roman offerings seem to have been often in the form of valuable metalwork deposited in watery places.

I think we do our ancestors a serious injustice to assume they were such a bloodthirsty lot.

In fact I think that modern pagans are very similar to those of ancient times as many of us don't expect the gods to grant us our prayers unless we make an offering to them. Modern pagans may burn candles and incense at household altars but they may also leave flowers at shrines or even sacrifice time by spending it in environmental causes like picking up litter in an otherwise beautiful place.

If anything I believe modern paganism is moving closer to that of ancient times as this reciprocal relationship with our deities.

The biggest theological (and thealogical) differences are probably how we view the nature of our deities and some modern moral precepts.

I disagree with your idea that Pagans were a bloodfirstly lot, any more than the Jews at their Temple. The ritual slaughter of food actually placed the work of making meat ready to eat away from the average person, much as the modern butcher does so even more today; the only difference is that it was tied up with cultic practices and meals, which was as much a social occasion as a religious one. There was also an element of divination with the entrails. But I suspect you are confusing something that was acceptable, and taken as almost commonplace - rather like dining out at a masonic dinner - with the kind of provocative sacrifice of the modern pseudo-satanic movements - not Wicca or Druids, but those which try to ape the cults supposed to have been around at the time of the witch trials.

The modern best book on sacrifice, which mentions a multitude of evidence and sources is "European Paganism: The Realities of Cult from Antiquity to the Middle Ages." by Ken Dowden (2000).

In "European Paganism: The Realities of Cult from Antiquity to the Middle Ages." by Ken Dowden, the basic fact is noted that: "Paganism is about eating. Sacrifice is the key ceremony of paganism—that is why Jarl Hákon, who reinstituted paganism in Norway around 970, was known as blótjarl —‘ sacrifice -earl’. Eating, typically communal, is the normal outcome of sacrifice and therefore, even in the dying days of paganism, this kernel survives" (p.159)

Later in the book, he devotes a whole section, drawn from documented sources, on "What to sacrifice" (p172). He notes that "The animals which are sacrificed in European and Indo-European paganism satisfy a number of conditions. They should be domesticated, not wild. Greeks hesitate to sacrifice animals so domesticated that they are seen as working partners; so dogs are rarely sacrificed in Greece or Rome, nor are horses or plough-oxen. But the prime sacrificial animal remains one that lives with man and, together with men, is perceived by Indo-European language as contrasting with the whole category of ‘wild’ animals. It has, of course, been bred for food. In some cultures there may be a taboo against a particular animal, notably the pig, as we have seen in Judaic and Egyptian culture. "

When we come to Roman sacrifices, the evidence is overwhelming that animal sacrifice was common, and popular. Again, think of conviviality, and the modern BBQ, and the way in which hunks of bloody meat are placed on a fire, and - except for vegetarians - no one thinks twice about it. I am not saying the BBQs are in any way derived from ancient sacrifices, but I am trying to show how the way of animal sacrifice is not something disgusting, or bloodthirsty, any more than the BBQ is, or the modern butcher at his trade.

Roman Epicurean poet Lucretius denounces the common belief that it is pious ‘to sprinkle altars with much blood’; Livy (22.10.3) mentions the Ver sacrum in which stock—pigs, sheep, goats, cows—born that spring starting from the day specified by the Senate and People for a five year period. There is the the suovetaurilia, ‘pigsheepbull (offerings). There was also a private version of these divination of entrails whom Cato the elder in the early second century BC banned his estate-manager from consulting ( De agri cultura 5.4). But by the end of the Republic there was already an official college of sixty haruspices and by the end of antiquity inspection of the liver had become a routine, formal part of pagan Roman sacrifice.

So I conclude that your depiction of Romans as incense burning New Age types does not really fit with the existing sources.

Sorry to "Necro" an old conversation, but the topic of this article is extremely far fetched fromactual souirced practices of paganism.

To refer to the core of paganism as "eating" is the most ludicrous concept I have heard in a long time. Prior to the industrial age food was always a source of contention for any society as we struggled against the external to maintain food and supply an ever increasing population. To lay claim this was the centre of paganism is without source and credibility.

Was eating, the source of food and the maintenance of it a central factor of the ancient lifestayle, be it Roman, Celt, Norse, Chinese or any other - of course it was. It was not however the centre of their religions, but of course was a part of it. Animal sacrifice was a means to an end, a practice found in almost every single religion of thre world if you go back far enough. Does the fact the "ancient jews" practiced sacrifice mean that modern Jews cannot lay claim to their heritage - that they cannot say their practice is directly tied to their ancestors? Of course it doesn't, and the same applies to the pagan religions of western europe, just because they did something that is no longer practiced does not "sever the tie" with them. It shows the religion has evolved, adapted and changed in accordance with social need.