AH Challenge: Widespread western cannibalism

[eschaton]

Have a POD whenever you like that makes society as similar to modern day as possible, but with cannibalism a common practice of Europe and the rest of the west. It does not have to be 'raising human as cattle', it can simply be cannibalism as a funerary right if need be.

[Nik]

OTL: every time a Catholic takes Communion...

I've never dared ask how a Vegetarian reconciles their beliefs in this matter...

[Thande]

Because Jesus was not, entirely, human.

[Hendryk]

Originally Posted by Thande

Because Jesus was not, entirely, human.

Wasn't he? I thought Western Churches, whether Catholic or Protestant, adhered to diophysitism, i.e. the idea that Jesus was both wholly human and wholly divine.
You're the believer, and I'm the one who has to lecture you on Jesus?

[MrP]

Well, if he's both wholly human and wholly divine, then he's not entirely human Except that he is So both statements are true. From a certain point of view

[Thande]

I am so glad my church doesn't have a fixed doctrine ordered down from on high (By which I mean popes or archbishops, not...really On High, if you see what I mean. )

[Paul Spring]

I'm pretty sure that the original post referred to actual cannibalism in the sense of eating real human flesh.

[Grimm Reaper]

You people just HAVE to come up with these ideas where Doctor What will see them, and we all know where that goes...

[Leo Caesius]

Originally Posted by MrP

Well, if he's both wholly human and wholly divine, then he's not entirely human Except that he is So both statements are true. From a certain point of view

Schrödinger's Messiah?

[Thande]

*Strains not to do the 'if you put a dead Messiah in a cave and wait three days you can't be sure if he's alive or dead' joke*

[MrP]

. . . until he opens the door from the inside

[Othniel]

Well the stone was rolled away.... And yes, fully man fully God is the common theology. (Or I like God incarnate as a better title.)

[Wozza]

so does Christ have one will or does he have two wills, one human, one divine?

[MrP]

One will, and it's both - hence Gethsemane

[Wozza]

oh interesting
you are neither Chalcedonian nor monophysite if that is your take

[Othniel]

Originally Posted by MrP

One will, and it's both - hence Gethsemane

Not to mention Calavary...

[Doctor What]

There are, generally speaking, two types of ritualized cannibalism; exocannibalism, eating members of an enemy group, and endocannibalism, eating members of one's own group.

Exocannibalism was a celebration of victory over an enemy. The symbolic treatment of the enemy as a game animal was an extreme form of racism that served to heighten enthusiasm for warfare. If they were successful in killing the enemy, they would butcher the bodies, and feast on them before returning home. If they captured live male prisoners, they took them back to the village where they allowed the prisoners to live for a time, sometimes for many years. After a ritual "escape," they would sacrifice, roast, and eat a prisoner. Desiring to eat the enemy was an expression of fierceness that elevated the status of the warrior and struck fear into his enemies.

Endocannibalism symbolized very different things: reverence for the dead, an incorporation of the spirit of the dead into living descendants, or a means of insuring the separation of the soul from the body. For example, a Mayoruna man once expressed a wish to remain in his village and be eaten by his children after his death rather than be consumed by worms in the white man's cemetery.

In recent times the Panoan, Yanomamö, and other lowland groups in the Amazon Basin have consumed the ground-up bones and ashes of cremated kinsmen in an act of mourning. This still is classified as endocannibalism, although, strictly speaking, "flesh" is not eaten. The Yanomamö mix the bones and ashes with plantain soup before consuming the mixture, for example.

For this POD to take place--

-Either western civilization was descended or heavily influenced by an extremely fierce warlike tribe that practiced ritualized eating of their slain enemies (supposedly there were a few groups in europe that may have done this--whether or not it's true or BS is something I can't answer at the moment)

-A religion or philosophy is spread that incorporates the idea of cannibalism as a way to either remember the ancestors properly or to incorporate their power/knowledge/souls into their descendents.

The first I can see developing rather easy--hey, we humans are immensely creative in coming up with ways to humilate/kill our enemies--sooner or later someone would have come up with this idea.

The second? A bit tough to have it and still have the same society as now--christian funeral rites are too entwined with european society/history to remove them and NOT have major changes.

[Tielhard]

How about .... one day a certain burger restaurant run by a sinistre clown finds they have run out of meat and, discovers a dead hobo out back ...

[csa945]

The Peshawar Lancers, in the years immediately following the fall, had widespread cannibalism, or the implication of it at least, mentioning corpses disappearing, but everyone pretended not to notice.

[Forum Lurker]

Oh, the cannibalism was both widespread and acknowledged; it just wasn't considered socially acceptable by the British. Stirling goes to considerable lengths to describe the evils of cannibalism both on the barbarian tribes (who, naturally, lost all semblance of civilization once they started eating people) and the Russians, who develop a Satanic religion to justify their serf-eating habits.

I'd suggest that all you really need for Christian endocannibalism (really, the more sustainable kind) is a few radical interpretations of the Communion thing. Exocannibalism probably requires either no Christianity at all or a mass starvation event which induces westerners to eat non-Christians for survival.