throopw@rtp47.UUCP (Wayne Throop) (10/29/85)
Interesting. Ted has now shown himself to be an inverse polymath, completely ignorant of the facts of astronomy, mathematics, engineering, and now anthropology, animal husbandry, and psychology. (1/2:-) > In particular, the sacrifice of CHILDREN to made-up gods of the sort > Campbell and Eliade describe would be so great a violation of the laws > of nature that I, for one, even if I was totally unaware of Immanuel > Velikovsky and of any other system of interpreting myths, would reject > the proposition out of hand. Possibly Ted thinks that the statistics on the number of children found per year dead in trash cans, or drowned in toilets, are ficticious. Or the fatalitites from parental child abuse. And so on and on. Or maybe it's only the sacrifice of children to gods that he finds hard to accept, but infanticide for convenience is believable. If so, I submit that it was *very convenient* to sacrifice an unwanted child to the local god, thus fulfilling a social obligation and ridding oneself of unwanted offspring at the same time. > Protection of one's children is the most absolute law of nature, in > fact, the only principle which naturally and normally comes before self- > preservation. Almost all higher animals will literally throw their own > lives away protecting their offspring. I suppose that, since self preservation is so important, that millions of soldiers didn't die in the various "World Wars"? Or maybe those soldiers thought they were directly protecting their children? What dreck. Also, take pigs as an example of this "absolute law of nature". A sow will roll over and crush her offspring without any apparent remorse, and then eat the carcas. This is universal mother love? But maybe pigs aren't "higher animals". Then again, maybe humans aren't either. > Such a practice [infanticide] would only be possible amongst people who > lived in perpetual fear of the entire planet being annihilated by forces > utterly beyond their control. Utter nonsense. Infanticide is *very* common among primitives, even today, and fairly common in "civilized" countries. For an example of civilized infanticide, it is estimated by some pessimists that 10% of children born in Italy (where abortion is illegal and birth control is frowned upon) are secretly killed. Even if the percentage is off, the practice of infanticide as retroactive birth control *is common*. Among primitives, an example is the central american aborigines, who habitually kill unwanted or unneeded children. Males are highly prized, and females are a social detriment, and so female infants are often drowned. More than two-thirds of all females born are killed in this way, for simple convenience. When it was pointed out to them that this meant that most men ended up with no wife, a local sage said that that couldn't be the reason, since "... we drown the same number of boys as girls.... more than three of each!" I bet this fellow could prove that mumble-saurs couldn't walk, too. In short, Ted's grasp of the psychology and practice of infanticide is, at best, feeble. Infanticide may be abhorrent to me and thee, but it doesn't seem to be to those that practice it. > [much omitted nonsense] > > (and this kind of knowledge [that is, drivel derived from romantic > notions of infanticide] WON'T be found in books by Campbell or > Eliade) This is high praise for Campbell and Eliade, but I suppose they deserve it. -- "Wake up and smell the coffee!" Ann Landers -- Wayne Throop at Data General, RTP, NC <the-known-world>!mcnc!rti-sel!rtp47!throopw
rlr@pyuxd.UUCP (Rich Rosen) (10/31/85)
> Interesting. Ted has now shown himself to be an inverse polymath, > completely ignorant of the facts of astronomy, mathematics, engineering, > and now anthropology, animal husbandry, and psychology. (1/2:-) [THROOP] Sorry, but I found the "inverse polymath" comment to good for words. What a great line. Kudos. -- Popular consensus says that reality is based on popular consensus. Rich Rosen pyuxd!rlr