SCHOLAR ISLAND

"Sacrifice is an enduring enigma. Too subtle to define, too pervasive to ignore, too close to the heart of our culture to observe objectively, and too horrible to accept without flinching, human sacrifice manages to hide from us while making its presence felt everywhere. Like a black hole in space, which destroys all light around it but somehow gives rise to galaxies, sacrifice is a vacuum at the center of culture which somehow spins the web of life."

"The notion that human society can survive without sacrifice remains an unproved hypothesis."

"The number of human sacrifices may actually be greater in Yunguyo today than it would have been in a similar population under the Inca system."

"The old idea of sacrifice was this: that blood of the lower life must be shed for the feeding and strengthening of the handsome fuller life."

"Before Judaism, Christianity, or Islam existed, before people could write, and before they founded cities, they sacrificed. The species Homo neandertalensis (flourishing between 110,000 and 35,000 years ago) interred both animal and human skeletons near hearths evidently constructed for sacrificial gatherings. Remains of young children found in Crete from the ancient Minoan civilization at Knossos, dated during the middle of the second millennium B.C.E., were found charred, their bones nicked in a way that accords with how Minoans prepared sheep and goats for ritual slaughter. Horrible to conceive of, human sacrifice has nonetheless remained rooted in human behavior from the time it emerged, deeply enough that the impulse persists, encoded even in evolved societies."

Abraham's Curse: The Roots of Violence in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam" by Bruce Chilton

"I have already given two cousins to the war, and I stand ready to sacrifice my wife's brother..."

Book: "Dying For The Gods: Human Sacrifice in Iron Age and Roman Europe" by Miranda Green

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