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Good question.

Simply put, because we lost the ideal. We are presently operating with a downgraded system. We want to go back to the ideal.

"What about the verses in Isaiah and Hosea which, I think, basically say God never really wanted animal sacrifice? How do they factor in?"

Isaiah scolded Israel with those words because we ended up treating the sacrifices like mail-order atonement. [Maintaining my previous analogy.]
"Oh, I sinned. Says here 'offer a cow.' OK. G-d, here's your cow."

Isaiah was saying, "No, G-d doesn't want your cows. He wants YOU/US."
Offerings should be a cathartic experience for US!
We should shudder appreciating it should be US on the alter!
What happened to our relationship with G-d? Our gratitude for His providing? Our connection we once sought with Him?

Cows aren't rich or poor. When you are going to bring a gift to G-d, to the Boss- if that will help you understand it better- the Boss knows how much he pays you. A person with good sense and gratitude knows the Boss be moved by a gift of quality and that is well thought out even if it's inexpensive, rather than throwing at him whatever the sales clerk picks out because you can't be bothered.

When Kain brought his offering it says from the field. Nothing special.
When Abel brought his offering it was from the choicest.
Abel's offer was accepted.
Not because G-d wanted a sheep. It was because Abel showed he valued the relationship.

We're introduced with a sacrifice being a male from the cattle. An unblemished animal. If that was too much you could bring a sheep. But still one fit for offering. If that was still too much a bird was acceptable. For the poorest of the poor there were flour offerings.
So unlike the analogy, we couldn't pick out any gift we wanted. There were parameters. [Which also points to US learning something from the sacrifice. Not us picking it out as if to teach G-d something.]
Being that G-d knows what's in every man's heart, he wasn't looking for the animal.
He was looking for the heart.

We might not have coined the phrase, "There but for the grace of G-d go I" but we certainly put in motion the concept.


This all being the case, now you can probably appreciate that sacrifices were exceptionally practical and on many levels.

Animal sacrifices kept 10's of thousands of Jews fed.
Priests were not land owners and their sustenance and livelihood came from temple sacrifices and gifts.

Animal sacrifices kept wealthy people in check.
When you bring the best you can afford to G-d out of gratitude that it all came from Him then it is harder to turn away the poor who ask you to share a bit of the wealth with them as well.

Animal sacrifices kept powerful/arrogant people in check.
You can't watch the life drain from an animal, knowing that should be you, and then turn around and abuse another person.

Animal sacrifices kept unhealthy, self-deprecating in check.
As low as someone might have sunk, they knew they they were not an animal. They still had some vestige of having been created in G-d's image. Of still being part of the big picture.
Maybe they felt at 2% capacity. Maybe they thought G-d hated them. But while sacrifices were going on, no Jew could ever be so empty as to think himself no better than an animal.

Animal sacrifices kept the world in check.
The Temple was available to all the nations of the world. Anyone was welcome to bring a sacrifice to G-d and any person was able to draw from the richness of depth and breadth of the sacrifices whatever they were willing to draw.

Animal sacrifices kept the world at peace.
And every Sukkos holiday 70 sacrifices were offered on behalf of the continuity and well being of the 70 nations of the world.



Until that time when Israel allowed their evil inclinations to overpower themselves, thereby reducing the once invaluable House of G-d into a glorified, yet valueless, meat processing plant. But G-d doesn't need a butcher. So there arose a leader of a nation who similarly saw no value in it and came and destroyed it. He destroyed a shell of a building because Israel had already destroyed the content.

Prayer has been the new service of the heart.
May G-d have mercy on us and redeem us and may His house be rebuilt, speedily and in our day!

"Doesn't Sacrifice imply giving up something? If you are giving something that is not yours to begin with where is your Sacrifice?"

That is true. A sacrifice had to belong to the person who was bringing it. If you read the Torah you'll see birds were allowed instead of cattle to accommodate the poor.

[We'll cut out the xtian stuff for relevance and brevity sake. ]

"In Genesis God gives man every herb of the field for meat. But selfish meat eaters don't like that so they claim the Bible gives rules for eating meat as does the Torah apparently."

Very apparently.
See Gen. 9:3 for starters. Where G-d tells mankind they can eat meat. Did you ever read it?

"the Bible gives rules for slavery as well does that mean God condones slavery?"

Do you really need me to answer that?

"Animals have their own lives and souls and are not ours to give. When animals kill each other they do not know any better. They are hungry so they do what is their instinct. Their souls allow them to suffer fear and pain but not to reason morally."

I never knew such tests were run on animal souls. Where did you get your data from? Can animals reason immorally? That would explain justifying their eating each other. Maybe its not instinct but reasoning immorally. Like liberal democrats who advocate second and third term abortions and gay marriages.

"It is bad enough that human beings still eat animals when we no longer live in a world devoid of other food during the winter must we advocate Sacrifice as well?"

Two things.
If global warming is due to cow flatulence, so wouldn't eating a cow be a good thing?
Second, as you intimated above, but not in so many words, [because not only do you NOT read that which you complain about but you also do NOT read your own words,] G-d advocates meat eating, slavery [according to Jewish law], and sacrifices. We do what G-d wants.

"Religions obsession with blood and how much God desires it sickens me. Is God some kind of vampire?"

The problem really isn't with G-d. It's your ignorant blabbering.
First of all, read the Torah if you want to complain about it. Because you clearly haven't.
Second of all, think about it.
You know, like a "science minded" person would.
I'll give you a head start:

We haven't had a temple for over 1900 years. Do you know when the last time we had an animal sacrifice was?
I know you don't.
Over 1900 hundred years ago!
What kind of an obsession is it when you ABSTAIN from sacrifice for over 1900 years?

What kind of an obsession is it when you advocate prayer in place of sacrifice?
What kind of an obsession is it when you obligate only TWO community sacrifices... and the rest were required ONLY IF someone sinned?
What kind of an obsession is it when tens of thousands of people who had no fields were fed off of the meat and breads from sacrifices?

"I don't think so."

...so maybe it's time you started.

"This is why many science minded people see religion as primitive thinking."

But since we all know that science only acknowledges what it can see, touch and measure... and since religious minded people think BEYOND that BOX- to what cannot be measured... to what is beyond measurement... so the reality is that the scientists are the primitive thinking ones.

Like when you have an infant and hold a rattle infront of him, and he wants it. Then you take the rattle away and as soon as it is out of site, its forgotten. The infant has lost all interest because the rattle has left its sphere of reality. That's the scientific mind. Only what it can grasp within its sphere of reality.

Primitive and infantile.

"When will religion learn to catch up to modern philosophy?"

Soon as it throws the gear in reverse.

"Of course most scientist are meat eaters too whether they are religious or not but atleast they have given up the primitive concept of human or animal Sacrifice."

Flaming hypocrisy aside, they actually make the biggest human sacrifice of all.
They cut themselves off from the purpose of humanity.

We are such a soft, pampered, hyper-sensitive-to-grossness generation that, yes, the thought of having to kill a cow or chicken would even give me pause. Unlike the olden days when everyone had their own animals or went to town and picked out an animal to be slaughtered or one that already was on display on a hook.
Back then, if a woman couldn't gut a calf, well, what kind of a woman was she!?

There are still a few places in town where you can pick out your own live lobsters. I saw a clip of a Japanese restaurant that prided themselves on how fresh their food was. The lobster was still moving on the far end of the plate while you were feasting off its innards on the front end.

Transgression of "limb of a live animal" aside, it was mighty gross!

If you happen to have a cow that is the family pet, you certainly do not have to dedicate IT as the gift offering to G-d.

And as far as the money issue, do you think cows grow on trees? It might be easier for some people to relate to them properly if they did but until they do, a cow is good money and giving it or giving cash is, essentially, one in the same.

I did speak to a cow once.
He told me about his 401K savings and his retirement portfolio. He had planned on doing some traveling in his older years. He heard the grass in Brazil was much greener than the grass in Texas. He showed me some pictures of his grand children and he mooed with such nachas.

I went back to see him again, but, alas, he ended up as dinner for a number of families who are raising children and grandchildren of their own.
What a waste.

Another remorseful story of a bovine's shattered dreams.

Damn you people!
Damn you!

Pamela 1965 wrote:

---

"We are such a soft, pampered, hyper-sensitive-to-grossness generation that, yes, the thought of having to kill a cow or chicken would even give me pause."

"Yes we are spoiled. We just go to the store and buy our food and never give a thought of how that turkey was killed, or how that cow was killed."

You don't.
We Jews are ALWAYS concerned about how the animal died and kosher slaughter is the most humane method.

"Unlike the olden days when everyone had their own animals or went to town and picked out an animal to be slaughtered or one that already was on display on a hook."

"I am sure Laurel Ingalls Wilder watch her dad slaughter the animals on her farm. That was just the way of life back then."

Whoever that is, what you think is "back then" is actually 98.3% of ALL HUMAN HISTORY!
We are the glitch and "WE" are also a few 1st world countries. Most the world still probably kills and cleans there own food.


"Yes I have heard that Lobsters scream when you cook them. This would bother me to hear them scream, if I were cooking them."

I heard that scream. I thought the waiter stuck his thumb in the soup. "YOW, THAT'S HOT!"