I would read about the inquisitions first. The Spanish Inquisition killed about 5,000 as an execution of the civil law, not a religious ritual. The law was bad, but the interrogations were in an attempt to only censure or punish the “guilty,” and to the correct degree. It’s quite a different situation. Here is a link to the Wikipedia article: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish_Inquisition

You are referring to law created by a theocratic form of government during a time when there was no separation between church and state.

You can argue there was a law, and different rules, and a bunch of abstract concepts... in the end it is someone being killed for making God angry, and the form of execution is no different than a ritual.

For example, if we sent an average Hacker News reader back to the time of the Inquisition, they would start trying to share their scientific knowledge with others, talking about the laws of physics, chemistry, etc. Immediately after, they would be accused of witchcraft (chemistry back then was alchemy, a form of witchcraft) and that person would be tortured and then killed in a bonfire. That system is the one you seem to be defending now.

Would you please stop it with the flamewar about human sacrifice?

It was not my intention to create a flamewar and I will stop commenting on this.

The reason I am defensive when it comes to these articles is because they are actively used by hate groups to validate a perspective of the world where some nations are unworthy of their lives, freedom and right to self determination. Presenting these articles without an accompanying them with the context of the time does not help that situation.

I would suggest reading the article first. Monarchy isn’t theocracy. The Spanish Inquisition in particular was a power grab by the crown in a time when “two swords” feudalism was giving way to absolute secular monarchy, even in Catholic countries. The (partial) motivation in rooting out heresy was done in a belief that false teaching was dangerous for ignorant people, not to earn God’s approval for the ruler or the country. Grouping actions, circumstances, motivations and outcomes this disparate into a more precise term like “ritual” only creates a need for a new word.

You have a really cartoonish view on this. They were not killed because it made God angry. You have to put context on it.

You have to understand that religion was really important (maybe the most important thing) for the people of that period, and you have to know that their religion was threatened for centuries inside their own borders, you have to know about "La reconquista".

In a time of period were your territory was just regained from Moors after centuries of occupation and threatens to your life and beliefs. The only logical move was to identify those who were still Moors in the shadows, from their point of view they were the remains of the invaders they were still dangerous.

You have to know about the kind of punishments for the law breakers (not only religion laws) on that period of time, you have to know that the inquisition was the organization that investigated the cases to identify those who were false conversions (those who were still a threaten from their point of view), then when someone was found guilty for breaking their laws the state was responsable for imparting justice, their justice is very different from today's justice, we have learned a lot, but you can't properly understand their actions if you don't understand the context.

Are you saying we shouldn’t discuss an archaeological find because it makes a part of one civilization look bad? That kind of anti-science thinking is dangerous.

I'm not sure how did you come to this conclusion. The comment says nothing like this...?

I am saying that the term "human sacrifice" is rarely applied to European rituals of sacrifice involving humans.

You can use the term all you want, try to not use it in a biased manner.

Often depictions of human sacrifice in the Americas are used to justify the exploitation of the native people of the Americas.

It sounds like you’re advocating stretching the definition of the term to support your own bias, when it has a pretty clear meaning.

So when superstitious Europeans kill their own for religious reasons in a ritual to please their god, that's not human sacrifice? Change my mind.

I understand what you mean. Christianity can be seen in a different light if we recognized it as being centered around human sacrifice to a monotheistic god. But I think the problem has more to do with too much veneration for Western religion than it does with biased labeling of Native American religious practices.