anti-Vadeli propaganda & other thots

From: ian (i.) gorlick <"ian>
Date: Thu, 8 Aug 1996 16:42:00 -0400

Peter Metcalfe:
'Um, child sacrifice was part of daily Carthaginian Life'

That is actually a good example for the position that the Vadeli are the victims of propaganda. The records of extensive child sacrifice in Carthage are all written by the Romans who were the Carthaginians' worst enemies. There does seem to be some reason to suspect that there may have been occasional child sacrifices from the families of the city leaders in times of emergency. However that custom was not unique to Carthage or the Phonecians. The idea that such sacrifice was widespread and a daily event is debatable.  

'bloodletting was a key part in Mesoamerican religious traditions
(the Aztecs took it to extremes).'

Again there is a lot of propaganda here. The Spanish did their best to demonize the native religions in Central and South America. Certainly there was extensive human sacrifice in the Aztec culture, and some human sacrifice in the other cultures. Most of the bloodletting was self-inflicted on the leaders of the culture, kings and nobles ritually drew blood from their own tongues and penes.

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I don't think either of these examples stands up against the kind of behaviour being suggested for the Vadeli. The difference seems to be that in all real world cultures with practices that outsiders consider despicable, the practitioners of the despicable acts have felt them to be morally correct by some internal cultural values. In contrast, the Vadeli seem to have deliberately chosen acts that they themselves regard as immoral precisely because of the magical energy inherent in the violation of taboos. They have chosen to act in a despicable fashion and they do not justify or rationalize, rather they revel in the immorality of their actions.

Since it is too formalized to be considered 'chaos' the only label that I can find for it is 'evil'.

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