[idolaspecus]

I in general agree with most of your points in this thread and disagree with the claim that you've been disrespectful (to GP and to the Aztecs :)), but I do think there's an interesting and important space between your idea re. Aztec rituals and those who'd say your view is "disrespectful".

It's plausible, in my opinion, that evaluating the Aztecs' ritual sacrifice practice in terms of the modern scientific POV leads to a categorically incorrect analysis. I.e. the questions--whether the Aztec gods exist, whether unfalsifiable claims "make sense" or can be operative, etc--might not be relevant or interesting.

I.e. the function describing the relationship between how closely our actions align with true facts as we understand them intellectually and broad outcomes in quality of life (defined however you want) is almost certainly not monotonic.

I guess in short all I'm saying is that our conscious, intellectual understanding of the world is not the only useful motivator. And I don't mean this in some sort of supernatural, metaphysical, spiritual way: I mean that objectively rational behavior sometimes results from subjectively irrational behavior.