Is Cannibalism a Sin?

I am seriously asking this question. Obviously, if you were to murder someone and proceed to eat them, that would be a sin because murder is a sin. But what if one were to eat somebody who has died of natural causes? I am going to use the word of God (aka the Bible) to prove that cannibalism is not a sin; and not only is it not a sin, but will help you reach the Kingdom of Heaven.

First, let me make a few statements that everyone should agree with.

· God is good.

· God would never force a human to commit a sin.

· Punishment from God is intended to turn a person away from being sinful and help that person become righteous in the eyes of God.

God is good - I hope that all Christians believe that God is good. Psalm 86:5 says, "You are forgiving and good, O Lord, abounding in love to all who call to you." Psalm 92:15 says, "The Lord is upright; he is my Rock, and there is no wickedness in him." The entire Christian belief system is based on the fact that God is good; and only by God's grace and love can anyone make it to heaven. God is so good in fact, that he sent his own son to be crucified in order to save us.

God would never force a human to commit a sin - If God were to force humans to commit a sin that they otherwise may not have committed, wouldn't that go against everything that the bible teaches? The bible teaches us that we must "hate what is evil" (Romans 12:9), and forcing someone to sin is definitely an evil act. Therefore, if God were to force someone to sin, we would be forced to hate him for he would then be evil. But Psalm 5:4 states, "You are not a God who takes pleasure in evil." This tells us that God does not do evil things. If He did, it would undermine the entire Christian faith. Thus, if God would never do an evil thing and forcing someone to commit a sin is evil, God would never force a human to commit a sin.

Punishment from God is intended to turn a person away from being sinful and help that person become righteous in the eyes of God - There are numerous occasions in the Bible where God punishes a person or an entire group of people for being sinful. For example, God punished the Israelites for their sins by making them wander in the desert for forty years. The Bible even tells us in Hebrews 12:6 that "the Lord disciplines those he loves, and he punishes everyone he accepts as a son." This makes it clear that God does in fact punish humans. The purpose of punishment is to stop people from sinning, and essentially to turn people away from evil. Psalm 37:27 tells us to "turn from evil and do good; then you will dwell in the land forever." Basically, God's punishment is meant to turn us from evil and help us make it to heaven.

Hopefully we all agree so far. But now, what you've been waiting for: Cannibalism! The bible has its fair share of cannibalism, which may be a surprise to many. The three main verses about cannibalism that I will be discussing are Leviticus 26:29, Deuteronomy 28:53-57, and Jeremiah 19:9.

The second half of the 26^th chapter of Leviticus is a list of punishments that will be inflicted upon God's people if they are disobedient. In verse 29 of this chapter, God commands that if you are not obedient, "you will eat the flesh of your sons and the flesh of your daughters." In chapter 28 of Deuteronomy, God puts a curse on anyone who does not "obey the Lord your God and [does] not carefully follow all his commands and decrees..." Thirty-eight verses later, God adds cannibalism to the curse, quite descriptively, too:

53 Because of the suffering that your enemy will inflict on you during the siege, you will eat the fruit of the womb, the flesh of the sons and daughters the LORD your God has given you. 54 Even the most gentle and sensitive man among you will have no compassion on his own brother or the wife he loves or his surviving children, 55 and he will not give to one of them any of the flesh of his children that he is eating. It will be all he has left because of the suffering your enemy will inflict on you during the siege of all your cities. 56 The most gentle and sensitive woman among you-so sensitive and gentle that she would not venture to touch the ground with the sole of her foot-will begrudge the husband she loves and her own son or daughter 57 the afterbirth from her womb and the children she bears. For she intends to eat them secretly during the siege and in the distress that your enemy will inflict on you in your cities.

And finally, in Jeremiah 19:9, the punishments and curses are carried out when, due to the people's disobedience, God declares that He "will make them eat the flesh of their sons and daughters, and they will eat one another's flesh during the stress of the siege imposed on them by the enemies who seek their lives."

One could argue that God was only making a threat in order to scare the people, thus causing them stop being disobedient. But is it possible that God would not follow through on a threat? No, it simply is not. If God didn't do what he said he was going to do, he would have spoken falsely and therefore lied. Obviously, God would not lie. One of Ten Commandments prohibits lying, the book of Proverbs is packed with verses condemning liars and false words, and lying would make God a hypocrite, which He isn't. So, since God said he was going to "make them eat the flesh of their sons and daughters" one is forced to presume that God followed through and made them cannibalize their offspring. Therefore, since God is good and would not force a human to sin, cannibalism cannot possibly be considered a sin.

And since the Bible unmistakably says that cannibalism is not a sin but a punishment intended to remove sin from one's life, one can conclude that eating your children is a good thing that God sanctions and will help one reach the place everyone is striving for: Heaven!