There is nothing unique, unfortunately, about people offering the lives of their children to the gods.
The Abrahamic religions were born out of the revelation from God that He does not demand such sacrifices--in fact, that they are wrong.
Unfortunately, one of those religions--Islam, or at least the radical Islamist version of Islam--has reverted to the ancient idea that human sacrifice is a necessary precondition to gaining God's approval.
We are always just a hair's breadth away from barbarism, I guess.
NEW: Hundreds of women hold up their babies into the air to show they're willing to offer them up as martyrs in Tehran, Iran according to CNN pic.twitter.com/aITxd7m7Qb
— dustin mills (@dustinemills24) June 29, 2025
It's impossible to know how many Iranian women are genuinely interested in having their children sacrificed to make Allah happy--Allah's happiness being defined as Muslims murdering all the infidels--but at the very least, quite a few of them are willing to make a show of it.
In Gaza, children are trained to celebrate and even desire martyrdom--and not the martyrdom of the saints, who rose to that status by bearing the suffering imposed by people who abhorred Christianity. This martyrdom is much more active--of the suicide vest variety.
Video: @IDF saves Palestinian child armed with suicide explosive vest. The disabled boy was convinced to blow himself up with others. Many have seen this in photo, but few have seen the video. Here it is. pic.twitter.com/hRryqbbkkU https://t.co/l9VVMuRMFI
— Corrected Media (@correctedmedia) December 25, 2022
Americans struggle to comprehend such depravity. We believe it isn't normal, because among civilized people, it isn't.
But again, civilization is less normal than we would like to think. The modern idea that people are born good and only corrupt societies make them evil is precisely backwards. The opposite is true. As cute as we find children, we must remember that we struggle for much of their childhood to teach them how to repress their uncivilized impulses.
Left to our own devices, human beings are selfish and often cruel.
Offering up one's children for sacrifice may seem to contradict the first, until you realize that the sacrifice is made to please forces that one believes demand it. Here--take him, not me. I can make more.
Persians are not inherently uncivilized--it's just that the powers that be have inverted the childhood education process. Rather than teaching kids to channel their less civilized impulses into more productive ways of behaving, the Islamists teach them to embrace their darkest impulses to destroy others outside their tribe.
Culture matters, which is why the foundational principle of multiculturalism is deeply flawed. It is not true that importing different cultures just brings exciting new foods, as well as interesting music, fashion, and art. Sometimes we are importing useful new ways of thinking and approaching the world, but sometimes we are importing barbarians inside the gates.
The liberal impulse to welcome other cultures has brought many good things--cross-pollination can be a very good thing. But we shouldn't mistake openness to differences with a necessity to welcome all comers. Different civilizations can teach each other many things--but barbarians are the enemies of all of us.
From Beege:
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