Sensationalizing of "human sacrifice"

[Rudiger V. Busto]

 Craig Berry wrote:
"...Again, I insist on greater linguistic/sociological rigor!
'State-sponsored killing' and 'warfare' are not the same thing as
'sacrifice'.  Sacrifice is 'to make sacred'.  A killing which is a
sacrifice is conducted for a specific religious reason, as part of a
ritual in which such killing plays a necessary part.  Killings motivated
by secular goals (winning a war, ridding society of a troublemaker, and
the like) are *not* sacrifices.  ..."

But of course, it is arguable that "ethnic cleansing" and genocide are
motivated by the idea that the nation or sense of peoplehood is in fact
sacred and thus worthy of protection and purification.   One has only to
scratch beneath the surface of such actions to find the logic of "sacred
making" (or defense) in the ideology of nationalisms or ethnocentrisms.
Anthony D. Smith's work on how myth and ethnic/nationalist senses of the
sacred eloquently speaks to this point.

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Rudy V. Busto			Work:  650.723.0465
Assistant Professor		Home:  415.552.0257
Religious Studies		                   rude at leland.stanford.edu
Stanford University		Fax (work):  650.725.1476
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