The only sacrifices which I know of occur for the purposes of appeasing gods and through magickal ritual in modern day society, this tends to happen in Africa in places such as southern East Togo and Ghana (I can personally vouch for the rituals there in Ghana as I have been present to some). It is not a pleasant practice and the tribe were definitely not wiccans.
Wicca came into the practice in England in the 1930's and though it has some aspects of it deprived from ancient practices it does not conduct in animal and human sacrifices.
Hope this helps :)
Crystal Grey I find your post somewhat ridiculous (I am a vegan myself). Humane killing of animals (usually via electric shock), is very different to the often violent killing of animal sacrifices that occurs in many African Countries and elsewhere. You can love animals and pets as well as eating meat, honestly if everyone in the world became vegan many animals would probably go extinct, their popualtions are totally reliant on us breeding them for either milk, or meat. There is a reason you don't find wild cows in the UK, they stuggle to sustain themselves on our vegetation becasue they have been bred to produce milk and grow so fast that they need special feed to sustain them.
The killing of animals for food is part of our natural diet, other chimps and apes are also omnivores and fill in sections of their diet with meat. It is more unnatural for us to be vegan than omnivores. But that is just my personal opinion.
The dairy industry is probably the most cruel of all of them, only pregnant cows give milk, these cows are kept pregnant most of their lives and when they are too old to get pregnant they are killed for their flesh. This is at approximately 5 years old, cows left alone live until they are around 30, That is not humane, imagine if the only reason you were born was to produce babies to be stolen from you, then murdered only to be killed yourself when you are no longer useful. Have you ever heard the screams of a mother cow as they take her new born baby away from her? Ifs horrific, then that baby is killed for veal, you know to alleviate waste. Most of the pollution problem in the world is attributed to all the cattle farms, and if just 10% of the grain that is used to feed said cattle was given to humans, there would be no world hunger.
Humans actually do themselves more harm then they realise by consuming meat dairy and eggs. There is a lot of scientific evidence that proves that the protein in dairy (casein) actually feeds and multiplies cancer cells. Our bodies react to this protein as a poison.
Anyone who is interested in the science behind this should look up work done by Dr John McDougall, Dr Neal Barnard, Dr Cadwell Esselstyn, the documentary Forks Over Knives, and there are so many more.
Could you kill the cow yourself in order to eat it? Most people couldn't, because at the very core of humanity there is compassion.
Everyone is entitled to their opinion, but I find your comments on the subject H20FanRikki uneducated to say the least.
Uneducated, I am almost done with my university degree in just this topic. Dairy cows are kept pregnant for the milk industry but they are not forced to get pregnant at unnatural times, they have a pregnancy of around 274 days, and then normal produce milk for around 305 days. The calves are taken when they are born with no imprinting, often the cows do not even see their calf making it less traumatic for both the mother and calf. The calf is then kept on the farm where it was born and is fed on milk substitute till it is weaned, the female calves are then kept on the farm as dairy cows while the males are sold off to become breeding bulls.
Actually the only really damaging waste that comes from cattle farms is the methane they produce, but this is a natural product of cows due to their four stomaches and the build up of the gas from their firmenting food; even if the cows were wild this methane production would still occur.
Yes it takes more energy to feed cattle than it would to grow grain but they also help increase the necessary protein in our diet that could not naturally be acheived by mushrooms or nuts in some parts of the world.
It has been proven that almost everything in our lives can cause cancer, that is becasue if we lived forever we would all get cancer, it is the natural reaction to mutated cells in our bodies that occur over time not by protein.
And yes, If I was hungry enough I would kill one myself, because it is natural for humans to be omnivores, not vegans (despite myself choosing that lifestyle).
I don't really think that calling people uneducated the right response without actually knowing anything about their background.
I am sorry for vering off course but I cannot let someone call me uneducated at a topic I have studied hard in.
I admit that animal sacrifice in unsavory at best, especially when related to religion (personally), but I would say that the people you know are probably not Wiccan if they are sacrificing animals.
I simply found it interesting that people are offended by killing for rituals but killing for food that isn't even good for us is ok, you were the one who started with the insults, and you know nothing of my background.
And you called my comment ridiculous and then made yourself look uneducated, so don't insult people if you can't take it
H20FanRikki is right I have worked on my uncle's farm and what she says is true and dairy farms are beneficial to both the cows and to the consumers and you most likely drank milk as a baby which makes you a normal omnivore like everyone else. I am not going to lie I couldn't be a vegan I like meat and I like it bloody but I don't push my carnivorous views on others so relax.
Sorry I'm veering off the course of the subject but yeah sacrifices aren't wiccan they happen in rituals of voodoo, some forms of blood and sacrificial witchcraft but generally not legal in places like the UK and they are not done under the spectrum of Wicca.
