It's what's for dinner!

because apparently I'm the only one with nothing better to do on a Saturday night...

I was just thinking...with this post coming so quickly after the "green pet"/dog-eating comments, google search results could get even more interesting...maybe there should even be a special thread just for unconventional recipes. I admit my experience is quite limited, but half the art of cooking is in the imagination anyway.

Ladyfingers, anyone?

that eucharists and other silly symbolic acts aside, there have been many more real "religious" cannibals of one sort or another than non-religious cannibals, although probably mostly members of tribal cults whose rituals would be considered primitive and almost sub-human by most religious folks today(without a hint of irony or self-examination, of course).

It is telling that there are so many fervent believers who have fooled themselves into believing that they really are magically consuming jesus, while generally denying the idea that the act could be of any use, power, or virtue in any other cultures or situations. If they truly believe, then they are not even one full step away from primitive animism or vitalism(I'm sure there's a more exact word, but it's not coming to me) that they would likely reject in most other forms, yet cannot see in themselves. I guess if you call a silly, creepy, primitive ritual "holy" often enough, it keeps one from comparing it too closely to "non-holy" versions of the same actions and beliefs.

I do wonder what the ratio really is. How many acts of cannibalism are committed out of some religious belief or superstition regarding souls, or some vital energy, and how many are done out of malice or morbid curiosity taken to a psychotic extreme, without any superstitious motivation. Over the course of history, I'm sure the extreme majority of acts of cannibalism have been ritual and superstitious/religious in nature, but as time and civilization go on, I wonder if that is changing at all-not that this would be a good moral or logical argument for religion, even if most cannibals were non-believers.

I suppose one could try to make an argument for religious belief based on cannibalism, in a way, but one would need some knowledge that I don't imagine is available, or the willingness to make a few big assumptions. Take a different set of cannibals-not the primitive tribal cults, and not the mentally ill or impaired, but those who have turned to cannibalism out of sane necessity, to avoid death themselves. Out of this group, take the ones that have refused to eat human flesh and died or risked death. What are the percentages of religious vs. non-religious? Out of fear of hell or spiritual punishment, or respect for the "souls" of the dead, it is possible that religious folks might abstain in greater numbers. Of course, even if the numbers worked out that way, it is still a weak argument because of other assumptions. One is assuming that it really is wrong to eat human flesh, even for survival. One is assuming that it is morally better to die, and lose that potential, than eat a dead, non-aware person who can't be harmed anyway. Without those assumptions, it's really just an immature "gross-out" argument for religion. I'm sure I'll see it in a book of apologetics sooner or later.

A better argument for religious morality could be made if we knew how many believers vs. non-believers have actually killed another human for food to save themselves, not just eaten an already dead body. In my experience, religion doesn't really impart much morality, and often seems to serve as a "saving throw" against the consequences of immoral behavior. But at high stakes, close to death, who knows? Is it possible that fear of hell or god might stay a starving hand a little longer than will alone? Certainly the level of respect one has for others' rights would be involved, and that varies wildly among the religious and non-religious. While christians or any religious group might or might not hold out longer among only their own, what if it were extreme right-wing christians who have no problem killing for their religion or politics, with one suspected muslim terrorist or suspected child molester in the room? While most religions claim to teach benevolence, and sometimes do on paper, who hasn't seen the self-righteousness of being one of the "elect" lead to abuse of power and disregard for those in the out group? Which impulse would prove stronger, the desire not to sin, or the assurance that god cares about you more than "them"? How would they compare to similar groups of non-believers?

A bit away from the criminal topic of the post, but related to the moral issues:

The first time I watched the movie "Alive", the opening lines of the narration sent chills down my spine. It is spoken as the camera rolls slowly across desolate, forbidding snow-covered mountain peaks.

Narrator: After 20 years, you analyze a lot. You remember people, heroism. "The Miracle of the Andes", that's what they called it. Many people come up to me and say that had they been there, they surely would have died. But it makes no sense, because until you're in a... situation like that... you... you have no idea... how you'd behave. To be affronted by solitude without decadence or a... single material thing to prostitute it elevates you to a spritual plane, where I felt the presence of God. Now, there's the God they taught about me about at school. And there is the God that's hidden by what surrounds us in this civilization. That's the God I met on the mountain.

I don't appreciate it necessarily as a refutation of belief or non-belief, but as a simple statement of the absoluteness of physical reality and the flimsiness of our own human perspectives, including (although most believers would fervently deny it) our ideas of morality and god.