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The Old Testament alludes to--and utterly condemns--the sacrifice of children and other condemnable pagan practices that were widespread among the Canaanite nations, for which God decided to punish them by taking their land away from them and handing it over to the nation of Israel. Below some passages that attest to this fact:

Deuteronomy 18:9-14 (ESV):

9 “When you come into the land that the Lord your God is giving you, you shall not learn to follow the abominable practices of those nations. 10 There shall not be found among you anyone who burns his son or his daughter as an offering, anyone who practices divination or tells fortunes or interprets omens, or a sorcerer 11 or a charmer or a medium or a necromancer or one who inquires of the dead, 12 for whoever does these things is an abomination to the Lord. And because of these abominations the Lord your God is driving them out before you. 13 You shall be blameless before the Lord your God, 14 for these nations, which you are about to dispossess, listen to fortune-tellers and to diviners. But as for you, the Lord your God has not allowed you to do this.

Leviticus 18:19-25 (ESV):

19 “You shall not approach a woman to uncover her nakedness while she is in her menstrual uncleanness. 20 And you shall not lie sexually with your neighbor's wife and so make yourself unclean with her. 21 You shall not give any of your children to offer them to Molech, and so profane the name of your God: I am the Lord. 22 You shall not lie with a male as with a woman; it is an abomination. 23 And you shall not lie with any animal and so make yourself unclean with it, neither shall any woman give herself to an animal to lie with it: it is perversion.

24 “Do not make yourselves unclean by any of these things, for by all these the nations I am driving out before you have become unclean, 25 and the land became unclean, so that I punished its iniquity, and the land vomited out its inhabitants.

Jeremiah 32:33-35 (ESV):

33 They have turned to me their back and not their face. And though I have taught them persistently, they have not listened to receive instruction. 34 They set up their abominations in the house that is called by my name, to defile it. 35 They built the high places of Baal in the Valley of the Son of Hinnom, to offer up their sons and daughters to Molech, though I did not command them, nor did it enter into my mind, that they should do this abomination, to cause Judah to sin.

Sacrificing innocent children is a horrendous and condemnable practice which is obviously wrong however one looks at it. However, I find the practice itself very mysterious and perplexing, as I'm having a hard time trying to wrap my head around the practice. My educated guess would be that Baal, Molech and other pagan deities were not mere imaginary entities, but actual, powerful demonic beings that are ranked very high in the demonic hierarchy of Satan's kingdom, and by sacrificing children as an offering to these deities, some underlying spiritual laws or principles are at play by which the demons are able to receive some benefit and the individuals sacrificing the children receive some benefit as well -- like some sort of macabre "win-win" contract between the demons and the humans performing the ritual. In other words, the sacrifice becomes a "key" in the spiritual realm to "unlock" benefits from demons, and the demons would gain something in return as well, although I have no clue as to what these "benefits" might be and why the sacrifice would be required in the first place. But again, these are just my own speculations, and I'm aware that I may be completely missing the mark on this.

Question: What happens in the spirit realm during a ritual child sacrifice? Are there spiritual laws/principles that are tapped into when a ritual child sacrifice to Molech, Baal or any other pagan deity is performed?

Note: this is a topic that has me very puzzled, and I have no preference for any particular denomination on the matter. Therefore, answers from all denominational viewpoints are welcomed.

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    +1 Important question, especially given Abraham-Isaac and then Jesus-the Father.
    – Only True God
    Jul 11, 2021 at 16:56
  • This also directly relates to human sacrifice generally, such as occurred in many places pre-Christianity.
    – Only True God
    Jul 11, 2021 at 16:58
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    @SRI Based on the down-votes, I'd say looks like the Freemasons don't want people asking too many questions like this. ;) But that video is over 5 (!) hours long.
    – Only True God
    Jul 11, 2021 at 19:08
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    @OneGodtheFather - Yes, I do.
    – user50422
    Aug 11, 2021 at 4:03
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    Right, so these are both instances of a more general issue - making offerings of animals (including humans) to deities, which is an instance of a more general issue - making offerings of anything (such as plants, animals, money, and so on) to deities.
    – Only True God
    Aug 11, 2021 at 16:58

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What happens in the spirit realm during a ritual child sacrifice? Are there spiritual laws/principles that are tapped into when a ritual child sacrifice to Molech, Baal or any other pagan deity is performed?

I believe most Christians would answer your questions with "nothing" / "no". Molech, Baal, etc. are false gods. Even assuming people worshipping them are actually dealing with a demon in some ways, God has power over demons, and in particular, all souls belong to God (Ezekiel 18:4).

Even so, I would question whether any such entities really exist, or if such were merely delusions on the part of the pagan worshipers. Note particularly 1 Kings 18:20-40.

Thus, while practitioners may commit sinful acts in the process of worship, such acts would have no spiritual result (aside from the results of the sin).

To be clear, demons have been given limited earthly power. It is therefore plausible that a person may be able to enter into an agreement with a demon to cause some earthly effect, such as obtaining wealth or bringing ill to enemies. I am not, however, aware of any "spiritual laws" — aside from the limits on demons set by God — which might govern such agreements. For hopefully-obvious reasons, you are not likely to find these described, if they exist, in the Bible, nor do I feel this question is on topic for this SE. (This excludes, of course, demons commanded in the name of God/Christ to do things which God might command of them, which seems to generally be "leave", "come out", and such; many biblical examples may be found. I expect that, since "go away" would be a superset of just about anything else a Godly person might wish to command a demon to do, this is why there are few examples of anything else being commanded.)

To address another point, part of your conundrum seems to be difficulty believing that humans would undertake such heinous actions as child sacrifice without receiving some actual, genuinely correlated benefit. To that, I can suggest that you underestimate the effects of confirmation bias and the placebo effect, as well as the human capacity for evil. Pop culture notwithstanding, I think the majority of Christians do not believe that Hitler received any supernatural benefit for his atrocities.

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  • To the best of my knowledge, the Bible teaches that demons are real and that witchcraft is real as well. Do you agree with this statement? If so, do you agree that there must be some underlying spiritual laws that are tapped into through these occult practices?
    – user50422
    Jul 11, 2021 at 16:51

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