Chichen Itza

Travel blogs on Instagram are very popular. People travel around the world and post pictures of famous sites often with themselves posing in front of it. Photos one would see there regularly are those from ancient Mayan and Aztec Temples in Mexico (places like Chichen Itza, Palenque, Uxmal, Teotihuacan, and Cholula). The postings describe these places as "World Wonder," "Beautiful Temple," "Creative Genius of this Civilization" and "Magical Place." In spite of all the admiration for the architecture of that time, one wonders if the visitors to these places realize what they were used for: Human sacrifices to appease the gods. On top of the temple-pyramid a priest would cut out the heart of a human and then the body would be thrown down the stairs of the pyramid.

To neglect this part of history and only focus on the stunning architecture would make it appear as if it doesn't really matter anymore because they didn't know better. Couldn't they know better? These human sacrifices were performed up to ca. 1550 AD, but already in 1000 BC the Old Testament stated clearly that human sacrifices are considered a perverse crime and are not wanted from God at all. When several thousand years before the Mayan and Aztec cultures other cultures concluded that these things were not right, Mayans and Aztecs could have come to the same conclusion in their conscience. A civilization that is systematically killing great numbers of their own people has reached the bottom of the pit of morality. It is directed against itself, and therefore not able to prevail for long. This proved to be true for the Mayan and Aztec cultures who eventually vanished from the face of this earth.