{"id":6893,"date":"2014-12-02T10:24:32","date_gmt":"2014-12-02T17:24:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=6893"},"modified":"2014-12-02T11:33:24","modified_gmt":"2014-12-02T18:33:24","slug":"animal-sacrifice-and-hard-polytheism","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=6893","title":{"rendered":"Animal Sacrifice and ‘Hard’ Polytheism"},"content":{"rendered":"
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A sacrifice to Kali in Nepal. (Washington Post)<\/p><\/div>\n

There was some discussion last week at the American Academy of Religion annual meeting as to whether the Contemporary Pagan Studies Group should sponsor or co-sponsor a session devoted to issues surrounding animal sacrifice.<\/p>\n

Some voices in the Pagan world suggest that you are not really a “hard” polytheist (truly understanding the gods as independent beings) unless you do it or at least accept its feasibility. Certainly it was a chief feature of civic Paganism in the ancient Mediterranean world. For many people, probably their chief or only opportunity to eat red meat was in the context of communal sacrifice.<\/p>\n

At any rate, if being a hard polytheist is the goal and sacrifice is a way to get there, then these Nepalese Hindus in the middle of a sacrifice of thousands of animals <\/a>are the “hardest” (and perhaps the longest and thickest) of polytheists.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

There was some discussion last week at the American Academy of Religion annual meeting as to whether the Contemporary Pagan Studies Group should sponsor or co-sponsor a session devoted to issues surrounding animal sacrifice. Some voices in the Pagan world suggest that you are not really a “hard” polytheist (truly understanding the gods as independent […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[128,5,40],"class_list":["post-6893","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-hinduism","tag-paganism","tag-polytheism"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6xQTg-1Nb","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":567,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=567","url_meta":{"origin":6893,"position":0},"title":"Association of Polytheist TraditionsThe APT\u2026","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"November 28, 2005","format":false,"excerpt":"Association of Polytheist TraditionsThe APT is a group of mainly reconstructionist Pagan religionists, planning a conference on 13 May 2006, at the University of Central Lancashire. You can find more information on the conference page.Tags: Polytheism, Paganism.","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":10186,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=10186","url_meta":{"origin":6893,"position":1},"title":"I Will Be Buying this Book on Polytheistic Theology","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"February 2, 2019","format":false,"excerpt":"New from Bibliotheca Alexandrina: Ascendant: Modern Essays on Polytheism and Theology. From the publisher: Monotheistic assumptions so pervade our culture that even those few people born into polytheist religions (or those who grew up with no religion at all) cannot help but be influenced by them. Polytheology raises questions that\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"Pagan studies\"","block_context":{"text":"Pagan studies","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=pagan-studies"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":7677,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=7677","url_meta":{"origin":6893,"position":2},"title":"Massive 2015 Year-End Link Dump! Something for Everyone!","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"December 28, 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"Some of the links that I saved that never turned into blog posts . . . \u2022 The Internet loves quizes, so \"What Kind of Witch Would You Be?\" (answer: hearth witch). I always suspect that the answer is based on just one question, while the others are there just\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"animism\"","block_context":{"text":"animism","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=animism"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.theoutdoorwire.com\/image_archive\/2210514.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":992,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=992","url_meta":{"origin":6893,"position":3},"title":"Pomegranate 9.2","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"March 5, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"I've been remiss in not noting the contents of the latest issue of The Pomegranate: The International Journal of Pagan Studies. Videlicet:\u2022 \"The Quandary of Contemporary Pagan Archives,\"Garth Reese, \u2022 \"The Status of Witchcraft in the Modern World,\" Ronald Hutton,\u2022 \"Kabbalah Recreata: Reception and Adaptation of Kabbalah in Modern Occultism,\"\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"nature religion\"","block_context":{"text":"nature religion","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=nature-religion"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":5677,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=5677","url_meta":{"origin":6893,"position":4},"title":"When Gods Sacrifice to Themselves","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"June 22, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"Almost all traditional Pagan cultures have one religious practice in common that contemporary Pagans for the most part avoid: Sacrifice, which means literally \"to make sacred.\" Earlier this month, in fact, at a Pagan camp-out one of the elders was discoursing on the uselessness of sacrifice. If g\/God were a\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"Greece\"","block_context":{"text":"Greece","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=greece"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"http:\/\/upload.wikimedia.org\/wikipedia\/commons\/thumb\/9\/91\/Omphalos_pushkin.jpg\/337px-Omphalos_pushkin.jpg","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":814,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=814","url_meta":{"origin":6893,"position":5},"title":"Animal Sacrifice and Authenticity","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"February 8, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"Last month Classics scholar Mary Beard suggested that contemporary Hellenic Pagans were not quite authentic because they omitted the centerpiece of ancient Paganism: animal sacrifice. (I discussed her critique here, and she responded.)Orthodox Christian blogger Rod Dreher's recent post--and especially the comments--pretty well illustrate just how squeamish today's population--even omnivores--are\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"Greece\"","block_context":{"text":"Greece","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=greece"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6893","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6893"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6893\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6900,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6893\/revisions\/6900"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6893"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6893"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6893"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}