Pagans, what do you feel are the differences between an offering and a sacrifice?

Question

Can you give examples of each? Which, if any, do you use in your practices? Is this practice more of a daily rite, monthly, seasonal, yearly, etc.?

Answer 1

An offering, to me, is more something votive - a candle, incense, food.... something minor. I do these infrequently, mostly at holidays and appropriate times in-between.

A sacrifice is something... more. Something I'm attached to, like a treasured pendant or a favorite tool. Something that has meaning to me, and when it's gone, I'll miss. Sacrifices, for me, happen less often and are situational.

Answer 2

You keep coming up with some good questions. This one is a bit of a challenge for me. I think an offering is something like tobacco or the dumb supper on Samhain, leaving food and drink out for those who have passed. A sacrifice would be offering something to the gods which you treasure, but because you wish to honor the gods are willing to give up. I'm not sure what that would be, exactly. I've given offerings many times but never called anything a "sacrifice" during ritual. We do offerings anytime it feels right... when we harvested the first vegetables from our garden, we left some out for the squirrels... an offering of sorts to share our bounty with the other creatures who share our home.

Answer 3

Off the top of my head, an offering is something that is given without particular hardship to me personally -- for example, incense burned to the Gods.

A sacrifice is also an offering, but of something of value, something whose loss is in some way a hardship to me -- for example, an afternoon spent cleaning up the local park when I could be lying in the sun reading a book.

(The traditional meaning of sacrifice, of course, is that of an animal offered to the Gods, but modern Neo-Pagans don't go in for that sort of thing as a rule.)

I give offerings frequently -- at each full moon ritual, and also on the studio altar when I'm running to a deadline. As for sacrifices, less than I probably should. We're forming an inner court to our local Full Moon group practice, and one of the challenges we're setting for ourselves is to find a form of sacrifice that will help the community. Regular Pagan park cleanups are looking awfully good at this point, as well as volunteering in the local animal shelters and in soup kitchens.

Answer 4

Since I view deities as being symbols and archetypes who don't need anything from me, I don't make offerings. Or ritual sacrifices.

I'm a very practical pagan. Not very interesting, I guess, or flashy. It's just hard to me to see that an idea wants something from me. I'll save my sacrifices for the investment I give my everyday life.

Answer 5

An offering is more along the lines of food (cakes, etc), and sacrifices (the ones involving sacrificing living things, that is)... really have no place in modern day Paganism. Most Pagan religions are against that sort of thing.

Answer 6

You have many good answers and all of them are actually correct. For me personally though I shy away from the word sacrifice because it has thoughts of the animal sacrifices in Judaism and ancient paganism.

For me an offering is like someone else said tobacco or corn meal or coffee beans or sometimes just a candle burning or incense.

An offering for me is just something we do in appreciation.
BB

Answer 7

In heathenry, sacrifices were originally just the annual meat harvest, really---kill the animals you can't feed through the winter, throw a big feast to make sure everyone in the village puts on a few pounds before things get really cold, invite the godhs to the party by splashing the leftover blood all over the Hof or grove . . . just life, really. No "propitiation" involved, no "atonement."

Nowadays, we use mead, chocolate, bread . . . but the intent is still the same. We're just having family over for a drink. :-)

Answer 8

Catholics are Christian and follow the Christian God and Jesus Christ. Pagans follow a wide variety of different gods. Catholicism is a Christian denomination (the original one in fact); Paganism is an umbrella term for many religions that are either nature-based religions, reconstructions of European and Mediterranean polytheistic religions, or a combination of the two. Venus Bless

Answer 9

a sacriffie is killing something......and we pagans don't do that anymore that was mostly druids though..its wrong...we don't beileve in it now but some ppl do that..then u r not one of us u r just being a barbarian for killing something that the earth has gave to u.....and that will comebk at u 3 times......
a offrenig is something that is not man made and we give to the earth to thank it for giving us.....a flower or something....
it depends on how religous u r......somw ppl give everyday or some give it w/ the 4 main celabrations and maybe even pagan pride day....idk if they do...i have never been to 1....though i hopw i will soon....

Answer 10

An offering can be anything given to the "gods" as a gift.

The word sacrifice means "to make sacred",.. by that, everything I eat is a sacrifice... my entire life is a sacrifice.