“The museum is full of noisy children and their caregivers, blended families, and whatever else we’re calling kith and kin these days. A long, mouse-maze, airport security-style line must be endured to get tickets. The sculpture of a Masai spearman facing off against a crouching lioness has been shunted to a lonely corner, lest someone somehow take offense. Nowadays offense is taken–snatched and grabbed–as if offense were something valuable to own.
(…)
Now wait a damn minute, you infidel apes of social science. Shut your brie holes and listen up. God, the God, the God who didn’t make me an Eskimo, does not require human sacrifice, he suffers it: “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.”
“That is the difference–perhaps the only difference–between civilization and savagery. And it’s not just us Christians who say so. From the time of Abraham no monotheist has practiced human sacrifice; no Buddhist ever has, and no Hindu since the days of suttee and the Thugs. No Taoist, no Confucian, no Zoroastrian, Baha’ist, or Sikh includes murder in his “spiritual practices.”
The text on the Maya continues:
Some societies in the ancient Americas, like the Maya, practiced bloodletting or human sacrifice as part of their ceremonies or spiritual beliefs. Why? Anthropologists don’t fully know.
“Let’s finish that sentence. ‘Anthropologists don’t fully know the difference between right and wrong.’
(…)
“Well, ‘despite centuries of injustice and oppression, today’s Indigenous peoples strive to sustain their cultural traditions.’
“You could say the same of the Irish. Being one, I looked for the exit to go find a drink.”
