information:extraction, linguistic:voice_change
Human sacrifice is the act of killing one or more humans as part of a ritual, which is usually intended to please or appease gods, a human ruler, public or jurisdictional demands for justice by capital punishment, an authoritative/priestly figure, spirits of dead ancestors or as a retainer sacrifice, wherein a monarch's servants are killed in order for them to continue to serve their master in the next life. Closely related practices found in some tribal societies are cannibalism and headhunting. Human sacrifice is also known as ritual murder. Human sacrifice was practiced in many human societies beginning in prehistoric times. By the Iron Age, with the associated developments in religion, human sacrifice was becoming less common throughout Africa, Europe, and Asia, and came to be looked down upon as barbaric during classical antiquity. In the Americas, however, human sacrifice continued to be practiced, by some, to varying degrees until the European colonization of the Americas. Today, human sacrifice has become extremely rare. Modern secular laws treat human sacrifices as murder. Most major religions in the modern day condemn the practice. For example, the Hebrew Bible prohibits murder and human sacrifice to Moloch and Shrimad Bhagavatam condemns human sacrifice and cannibalism, warning of severe punishment in the afterlife for those who commit such acts.