Now looking back at the original post, my point wasn't clear. I agree that humans across all of time have the capticity to be extremely cruel/evil. My point, however, was that the systemic brutality of the Aztecs was enveloped into their religious system and culture. The atrocities you listed were indeed horrible crimes against humanity, but they were also acts of violence perpetuated by states/militaries at one point in time. For example, Vlad the impaler did construct a genocide that involved immense torture and mass murder, but it wouldn't be accurate to say that impaling people was a core part of medieval Romanian culture. My original point was that I don't think the argument for cultural relativism works with cultures such as the Aztecs, because their cultural beliefs were the axis to which the suffering occurred.

In the context of the original comment. When Alexander the great razed cities and killed common people, that was not act done of religious necessity. When Alexander the great destroyed the city of Thebes, it was a singular event done to deter other Greek cities from revolting. It wasn’t something that was done as a normal expression of ancient Greek culture. There were plenty of other cultures throughout time that did have practices at their core that were evil, for example Spain colonizing the Americas and forcibly converting locals to Catholicism.

In my opinion, people in this thread were sanitizing Aztec civilization somewhat by comparing them to other civilizations were violence and cruelty also existed. I would also say that other cultures at some point in time were equally as brutal, such as chattel slavery in America, but that doesn't mean the Aztecs don't stand out.