Perhaps there was no rational reason, and we are closer to understanding than we'd like to admit.
A significant portion of modern Americans regularly enjoy blood and carnage in video games and movies. There's a cruelty, a bloodlust, deep in the human psyche that even now isn't socialized away, merely supressed, to be satisfied only in fantasy.
Yet thousands are murdered every year in our society, which harshly punishes murder. How many more would be killed, merely for sport, if that were encouraged by religion?
Perhaps there was no rational reason, and we are closer to understanding than we'd like to admit.
A significant portion of modern Americans regularly enjoy blood and carnage in video games and movies. There's a cruelty, a bloodlust, deep in the human psyche that even now isn't socialized away, merely supressed, to be satisfied only in fantasy.
Yet thousands are murdered every year in our society, which harshly punishes murder. How many more would be killed, merely for sport, if that were encouraged by religion?