Man was created in God’s own image, and it is precisely for this reason that killing of innocent human life is an abomination and a capital offense in the eyes of God. http://abortionmatrix.com So God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them. – Genesis 1:27 “Whoever sheds man’s blood, By man his blood shall be shed; For in the image of God He made man.” – Genesis 9:6 As horrific and hard to comprehend as it may be, one of the most widespread forms of worship among ancient peoples involved human sacrifice. Not only in Canaan, but also in northern Africa, India, Europe, and the Americas, the ancients believed that the blood of the sacrifice is what appeased the gods. The pagan practice of blood sacrifice is actually a perversion of the rites given by God to His people, Israel. To its priests He declared: “For the life of the creature is in the blood, and I have given it to you upon the altar to make atonement for your souls; for it is the blood that makes atonement for the soul” (Leviticus 17:11). Sacrifice to any other god was condemned as idolatry: “They shall no more offer their sacrifices to demons, after whom they have played the harlot. This shall be as statute forever for them throughout their generations” (Leviticus 17:7). As we look at the practice of human sacrifice in ancient times, keep in mind that, according to God’s perspective, these sacrifices were made to demons – the false gods of the pagan nations. Carthage The ancient city of Carthage was the capital of the Phoenician empire, one of the most advanced civilizations of their time. But recent archaeological expeditions have revealed another notable feature – the incredibly high incidence of child sacrifice. Altars on which children were sacrificed and stone markers, which marked the burial place of their remains, have been uncovered – along with the stone carvings on the markers that depict the children who were sacrificed. Clay jars were used to hold the remains. Burial grounds full of thousands of these ritually sacrificed children have been unearthed. The Carthaginians were descendants of the ancient Canaanites and worshipped the same god, Baal or Moloch. Archaeologists have established that the primary deity that they children were sacrificed to was the goddess Tanet, the name being a regional representation of the more universal Ashteroth. Written accounts tell us that the priests of Baal would beat drums during the ritual sacrifice in order to drown out the cries of the grieving mothers. As barbaric as all this may sound, we must remember that we are do much the same thing through abortion… with one obvious exception. Today we don’t commemorate or bury the children we sacrifice. It would be easy to attribute these ancient sacrificial rites to primitive superstition and believe that science and intellectual advancement would eventually cause this type of brutality to lessen and finally cease. But archaeologists have also discovered that over Carthage’s history, the incident of child sacrifice, even in the face of considerable intellectual advances, actually increased… until it suddenly stopped. And how did it end? When God judged Carthage. Roman armies invaded and destroyed the entire civilization, going so far as to cover the ground with vast amounts of salt so that the land could no longer be cultivated. The reason for this magnitude of destruction? The Romans, pagan though they were, were horrified by the degree of cruelty and evil that gave rise to these sacrifices and wanted to make sure that their civilization was completely obliterated. To this day, the stark ruins of Carthage stand as a testimony that God is not mocked. This should also prompt us to ask ourselves a critically important question: How far are we from facing a similar judgment for our own commitment to rampant child sacrifice?