Giving Thanks vs Pay as You Go II

In my last post I looked into the clash of cultures occurring between the Spanish Conquistadores and the Aztecs in the 16th century. I primarily saw the Aztec religion as the last great civilization to pay homage to demons in the guise of gods through a purely religious medium. This thought was inspired by the combination of the writings of G.K. Chesterton, and a couple of documentaries I saw on TV.

The war on childhood

I ended with a thought of thanks that we had moved beyond such episodes in out history, that the evil of human sacrifice had been excised from the human experience. Or had it? Again, the voice of Chesterton in The Everlasting Man gave me pause:

"...it may be noted as not irrelevant here that certain anti-human antagonisms seem to recur in this tradition of black magic. There may be suspected as running through it everywhere, for instance, a mystical hatred of the idea of childhood. People would understand better the popular fury against the witches, if they remembered that the malice most commonly attributed to them was preventing the birth of children. The Hebrew prophets were perpetually protesting against the Hebrew race relapsing into an idolatry that involved such a war upon children...This sense that the forces of evil especially threaten childhood is found again in the enormous popularity of the Child Martyr of the Middle Ages. Chaucer did but give another version of a very national English legend, when he conceived the wickedest of all possible witches as the dark alien woman watching behind her high lattice and hearing, like the babble of a brook down the stony street, the singing of little St. Hugh."

Is it just coincidence that the primary gods of Carthage, Baal and Moloch, favored the children of the Carthaginian nobility as their victims? What can we make of the claims by their non-Aztec contemporary vassals, the Mexica of Central America, that one in five Mexica children were levied as sacrificial victims for the Aztec gods?

Coming full circle

There are those who contend that religion is evil because it leads to such acts. They point out that human reason divorced from faith has defeated the superstitions that gave rise to such acts. I respectfully must call, please pardon the vulgarity, "bullshit" on those who take this point of view.

We have found new idols, however divorced from the influence of religion they seem to some, to whom we offer the blood of our children. In numbers exceeding those attained by Carthage, in scale far surpassing the bloody efficiency of the Aztecs, we offer the sacrifice of our unborn children to Chesterton's demons walking "abroad like dragons" through that thoroughly modern scientific ritual known as abortion. In the United States alone four thousand children a day, fully a quarter of those conceived, are dispatched by the knives of abortionists in payment to the gods of progress, convenience, comfort and freedom. We've come full circle.

Thanksgiving

Which brings me to the point of these two posts.

Today is Thanksgiving, a holiday ostensibly set aside for giving thanks to whatever higher power we individually subscribe to.

Some will give thanks to the gods of the religion of humanity. Demons masquerading as gods who demand that most precious substance for the sustainment of our way of life. I, however, will follow the path of the psalmist, "Never will I offer their offerings of blood. Never will I take their name upon my lips." (Psalm 16)

No, I, personally, choose to give thanks to the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. The God who led His people through the wilderness; the God who sheltered them from taking up the abominations which surrounded them in abundance in the ancient world. I will give thanks to Him for the universe he designed to operate to my benefit without payment, which He bequeathed to me as a gift.

Happy Thanksgiving and as always, until next time, all the best. Joe