The history of the human race is a dark story

of preoccupation with blood. Bloody blood.

We don't talk about it like the crazy aunt locked in our attic,

yet, also lies hidden in plain sight.

From blood sacrifices,

to the story of Abraham,

to cannibalism, 

to war,
to the popularity of horror movies,
to the preoccupation today with vampires,
to Roman ritualized sacrifices in a public arena,
our race has had a long obsession with human blood
and the blood of animals.

We watch to see the blood,
bathe in it
splash it around
water balloon with it
machete it out
bludgeon it out
see its splatters in video games
see it sucked out by vampires on TV.
We crave it.

But why?
From the Blood sacrifice of Jesus
to Roman sacrifices in the arena
we are treated every day
to beheadings, bludgeonings and unspeakeries
and don't complain
the blood lust in us is real.

From Jesus and his blood sacrifice
to the story of Abraham who was asked to sacrifice a son,
we have been at it for a very long time
starting with us as cannibals.

Yes we ate one another
from the very beginning 50,000 years ago
Cro-Magnon man met Neanderthal
and each hunted, killed and ate the other.
There are the bones in the graves to prove it.

Our ancestors the chimps to this very day,
we have discovered
will often fight, kill and capture members of rival bands
and eat the fallen.

In 2003 a controversial article in Science magazine
made the argument that cannibalism likely caused a gene marker
in us
to protect us
from diseases which likely came from
cannibalistic practices--
especially that of eating the human brain.

Human munching is our legacy
and there are reasons why this is likely so.

 The race was down to about 400-to-14,000 individuals
60,000 years ago 
were part of a very small gene pool
were subjected to in-breeding,
deadly climate change
forced migrations
and turned to consuming human flesh to survive

rationalized it by claiming it had it religious intent 
by claiming that it was the will of the gods,
 by claiming that the enemy tribe were not human
 and ,therefore,could be consumed like the flesh of animals, 
by claiming that by eating one's enemies one could obtain supernatural powers,
or the powers of the enemy warrior-
  we ate the heart, and the brain and the liver.

  And some humans acquired this taste for blood and human flesh independent of the conditions which gave rise to the practice.

In our time
people ate people
during the famine of Ukraine in the 1930s,
during the Siege of Leningrad in World War II,
during the Chinese Civil War
during he Great Chinese Famine (1958–1961),
during the Great Leap Forward in the People's Republic of China

during World War II in the Nazi concentration camps where
the prisoners were malnourished
 during World War II in the Pacific theater

among North Korean refugees
between 1995 and 1997
among Pacifica Islanders,
tribes in New Guinea,
plane crash victims in Uruguay in 1970,
among Jamestown settlers,
among tribes in New Zealand,
in the Solomon Islands,
parts of West Africa,
Polynesia,
New Guinea,
Sumatra,
among the Anasazi of the South west
the Mayans
among the Aztecs
among the Celts,
the Druids
and countless others all munching on human flesh
much of it children, infants, and young virgins.

Blood blood everywhere

Much if it in grotesque ritual sacrifice and ritualized murders,
blood-letting in practices of drawing and quartering,
witch burnings,
hearts ripped still beating from living tissue, out and out tortures of mass sacrifices in public in Roman arenas,
in fairy tales told to children where they are threatened with being eaten
in capital punishment today

we like our blood.
And we sacrificed Jesus too.
beheaded John the Baptist

 Our ancestors, Jews, Greek, Romans, Egyptians, Germans, all of them ritually murdered millions.
And Jesus arrives saying

"You are your brother’s keeper.” and don't kill or eat him.
 And even so with we still crave the red fluid
we eat the wafer and drink the wine
saying this is the blood and body of Christ.

Strange brew and porridge


How strange is this?
And now we put him on the cross bloodied up
and proclaim all this is religion
Cain slew Abel
and God accepted Abel's blood sacrifice
 but Jesus said "no"
no more blood and sacrifice
I am to be human kinds last sacrifice
that is why I am willing to die
for your sins
sins of cannibalism
and ritualized murder
Jesus threw out the moneychangers
not because they were moneychangers
but because they were selling sacrificed doves
lambs and animals
and getting rich doing so.
Jesus was against sacrifices
and the priests in the temple
saw their income threatened
 and their power
and sacrificed him.
But the die was cast
mankind could not go back
after Jesus spoke and said
you can't eat people anymore
can kill them any more
we are all equal before God
inaugurating the greatest ethos change in human history
ultimately winning over Roman arena sacrifices and cruelty
creating a new era in history
and today's mankind's greatest legacy
ideas which we know today as Justice, Equality, Morality and Mercy.