For any bleeding heart that posts option1, think about the cannibalism, female genital mutilation, and other such horrors that are 'common practice' in third world countries and tell me that-'oh it's not wrong, just different'.
Now, cannibals are certainly people that have had a just insanely bad press.[also see below]
There is no reliable record of cannibalism for food procurement ever being a regular practice in any human culture in the world (moles are probably our closest relatives to do
that). The cannibalism that once was widespread in the Americas, and also existed in parts of Central Africa, Neu Guinea, Tibet, and probably elsewhere that I'm not aware of, was a religious cerenomy by which parts of freshly deceased persons were ritually consumed in order that their spirit might live on in the souls of their consuments. Anthropologists distinguish between two variants (although some people practiced both) - the consumption of your own relatives, and the consumption of enemy warriors who had excelled in battle.
The first of these was far more widespread, and still exists in some remote corners - although it's certainly not 'common practice' across any third-world country.
As to female genital mutilation, I obviously consider this practice wrong. (The same goes for male genital mutilation, as among Australian aboriginals and in parts of Yemen and formerly of Saudi Arabia, where both male and female genital mutilation were brutally suppressed, and eradicated by the Wahhabi authorities in the 20s and 30s; although I don't mind the purely symbolic form of male genital mutilation practiced by Muslims, Jews and Americans). It should be pointed out, though, that the practice too has its own logic, being as it were a merger of a female initiation rites and of an extreme version of the cult of female virginity, which also exists/ed in Europe.
I gotta say, if forced to choose, that I would consider a society that practiced genital mutilation but not the death penalty as less barbaric than the other way round. (Voted option 2, btw.)
[below]Now, you sort of can't blame non-cannibals for giving cannibals a bad press. If you've got religious views of your own regarding the disposition of your remains, being eaten by your enemies is probably the worst fate you could imagine for yourself, and if only some of your enemies practice this, they obviously become especially dreadful to you.
Poll
