Do you have any evidence at all that any ancient people routinely or commonly sacrificed children to their gods?
It's been a long time now, but I believe I first got an understanding of this from an excellent book, Isaac Asimov's "Guide to the Bible".
Two main points:
For one thing, people knew almost nothing about the natural world. They attributed almost everything important to supernatural beings like gods. If your crops are bountiful it's a sign of divine favor. If a nasty illness starts destroying your livestock you've done something that made God angry. People made sacrifices all the time, sometimes little and sometimes big.
Also, children were valuable assets. You could start putting them to work while in single digits age. Nobody expected parents to supply 20 years of expensive support like education and health care. But adult children were also your best bet for support in old age. There were no pensions or anything.
So, sacrificing a child, especially a son, was a big deal sacrifice. Calamities and existential threats were an ordinary part of life, and people tried to curry favor with the gods, whether forgiveness or help, on a regular basis. Up to and including child sacrifice if the need was big enough.
Tom
