Is there any way of truly justifying whether one society's practice is wrong because our society looks at based on their own "standards"? The human sacrifice was considered a religious act that showed the Aztecs' true affection and admiration for their gods; however, today, our society looks at this as an act of pure evil and total madness. Obviously, this shows that our societies have different ways of praising our gods but does this ultimately mean our societies possess very different moral standards? Our first instinct is to say, "Heck no!" but the answer is actually a lot deeper than many people would first think.
[...] It was either their health or not eating this human that they had to choose from. In today's society, we obviously don't have this problem (thank God!) because we have multiple foods that could provide us with protein or any other vitamins and minerals for that sake. Today, we can look at this, from the Aztecs' perspective, as a morally good act if we say that by killing this person the Aztecs not only are honoring the gods but also aiding their society by getting rid of a warrior who could have killed a member of their society thus saving lives. [...]
[...] Altogether, scientific evidence not moral values could have played a key role in the Aztecs' decision to sacrifice a human because if they were to be scientifically proved to be wrong on their correlation between their ritual and the sun's continual orbit, would they still perform it? Fear played a huge role in the Aztecs performing the human sacrifice. The Aztecs' biggest fear was the world coming to an end because of the sun stopping in its orbit and ultimately, the destruction of their civilization. [...]
[...] Obviously, one of the most important commandments states that we shall not kill and these conflicts with any Catholic or theist, in general, that believes that killing another human being is morally wrong. So do the Aztec civilization and our own society possess different moral standards? There is probably no definite answer to this question, but based on all the reasons that the Aztecs had for performing this human sacrifice ritual, I think that our moral standards are very similar but not the same. [...]
[...] slaughtered during the rituals were often warriors captured by the Aztecs during battle or as tributes from other vassal states in the form of humans to be given up for sacrifice. The Aztecs intentionally never fully conquered several of the adjacent states because they realized they needed a steady supply of ritual sacrifice victims. Using their own people for the sacrifices could cause the people to overthrow their leader causing an uprising. Another cause for these ritual sacrifices was cannibalism. [...]
[...] This makes sense because the act of murdering a human being back then probably wasn't considered to being morally wrong because they either had to kill another human in order to protect themselves, and obviously, their own existence was way more important, or they killed a human as the way they knew of honoring their gods. Also, it's important to remember that moral standards have evolved from the beginning of time because at one point in time, there was no such thing as “morally wrong” or what we say today, evil. [...]
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