Why Child Sacrifice Is Easy to Imagine

By Audie Cockings

Yesterday I read a shocking article by National Geographic detailing the methodical sacrificial killing of 140 children ages five to fourteen. The broken child remains were recently discovered and unearthed near Chan Chan, an archeological complex in coastal Peru. The event is estimated to be five hundred years old.

Young ones were donated by parents to be held down, sternums severed in half, and rib cages broken open so that the undersized hearts could be cut out of the bodies.  The article does not state whether the children were still alive during that procedure, but that all were killed at the same time –which tells me that there were at least 140 community members who systematically killed at once. The researchers also mentioned that there were few “false starts” in the cutting, indicating that ritual members were skilled with the procedure and ceremonial blades.

New Science Fiction: Revival

By Tamara Wilhite

“I – We’ve analyzed the data. It was a spate of second births that parents had already wanted to have or the earlier birth of first borns. No one is having third children that are necessary for population growth. The incentives are not even stabilizing growth by encouraging parents to have second children above the one designer child they typically have. Children are seen as a burden; money doesn’t change mindsets.” Daniel wondered how so many experts in propaganda and public affairs could not see beyond the carrot and stick approach. The birth dearth was caused by a lack of desire for children as much as a lack of children themselves. “A single financial bonus does not counteract years of propaganda of how hard it is to raise more than one child.”