Ritual Murder, Ritual Murder

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Death by burning historically has aspects of both human sacrifice (Wicker Man, Tophet) and capital punishment (Brazen bull, Tamar, tunica molesta ). Execution by burning of Christian heretics was introduced by Justinian I in the 6th century. Detractors of the death penalty may consider all forms of capital punishment as secularized variants of human sacrifice. So Benjamin Rush (1792), see Louis P. Masur Rites of Execution Oxford University Press (1989), p. 65 Similarly, lynching, pogroms and genocides are sometimes interpreted as human sacrifice following Theodor W. Adorno. Horkheimer, M., Adorno T. W. (1947), Dialektik der Aufklrung. Philosophische Fragmente, Amsterdam: Querido; p. 199ff.Hughes (2007) in reference to the Holocaust writes, "the great exterminations of the twentieth century [1] have superseded human sacrifice as the ultimate touchstones of barbarity. When we require place names to denote the horror where culture collapses, we no longer think of Aulis or Taurica." In modern times, even the once ubiquitous practice of animal sacrifice has virtually disappeared from all major religions (or has been re-cast in terms of ritual slaughter), and human sacrifice has become extremely rare. Most religions condemn the practice, and present-day secular laws treat it as murder. In the context of a society which condemns human sacrifice, the term ritual murder is used.

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