> Prosecutions for the crime of witchcraft reached a highpoint from 1580 to 1630 during the Counter-Reformation and the European wars of religion, when an estimated 50,000 people were burned at the stake, of which roughly 80% were women, and most often over the age of 40.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Witch_trials_in_the_early_mode...
Edit I'm seeing 6 figure conquistador estimates and a 3 figure number acquired so far? Do you have a cite for 50k? Seems like a likely enough number just curious if anything has been refined since this https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-5893933/The-...
the six figure estimate provided by the conquistador was written off as fabricated or exaggerated, unti the skull towers were discovered by archaeologists, and a few years later were discovered to roughly match the dimensions provided by the conquistador. i gave half his number as a conservative hedge.
the aztecs are believed to sacrificed tens of thousands of people a year; i do not think it is as outlandish as it may sound.
the aztecs were a truly, historically, uniquely bloodthirsty people.
this was a traditional rite; the skin would then be placed in a clay vessel underneath a temple or shrine alongside many others
It's plausible, in my opinion, that evaluating the Aztecs' ritual sacrifice practice in terms of the modern scientific POV leads to a categorically incorrect analysis. I.e. the questions--whether the Aztec gods exist, whether unfalsifiable claims "make sense" or can be operative, etc--might not be relevant or interesting.
I.e. the function describing the relationship between how closely our actions align with true facts as we understand them intellectually and broad outcomes in quality of life (defined however you want) is almost certainly not monotonic.
I guess in short all I'm saying is that our conscious, intellectual understanding of the world is not the only useful motivator. And I don't mean this in some sort of supernatural, metaphysical, spiritual way: I mean that objectively rational behavior sometimes results from subjectively irrational behavior.
You have to evaluate ideological systems by their net good/evil per follower, otherwise their relative scales would dominate any comparison. For example, medical malpractice has killed unimaginably more people than any suicidal cult ever has. Still, that does not mean it's better to join a suicidal cult than it is to visit the doctor's office.
>we know so little about the Aztecs compared to Europe that it would be impossible to make an informed if absurd decision as to which way I would want to be executed.
The reason you'd want to pick the justice system is that justice systems, even when imperfect, can still declare innocent people innocent. A justice system sometimes makes mistakes, the Aztec temple only made mistakes.