Weekly Poll: Should Ritual Animal Sacrifices Be Allowed?

Weekly Poll: Should Ritual Animal Sacrifices Be Allowed? Thursday August 21, 2008 In some religions, animal sacrifices are an integral part of many religious rituals. Sacrifices of various sorts plant, animal, and even human have been integral to religions going back for as long as we have records of religious practices. Whether to allow animal sacrifices today is a difficult choice. Is the fact that dominant religions don't do animal sacrifices anymore a good enough reason to ban it? Is protecting the animals a good reason to ban it? I think that it's very important to keep firmly in mind the fact that the absence of animal sacrifices in a society's dominant religions could influence us against the practice. In modern America, at least, it would be very easy to regard animal sacrifices as "weird" and "primitive" simply because it's not normal in the context of Christianity or Judaism, but that's not only a poor reason to oppose the practice but is in fact an expression of privilege: ...  more