All religions contained sacrifice of one kind or another in the past. When still cannibals, it included human sacrifice and consumption. Cain killed Abel, Canaanite Goliath represents cannibal sacrifice and was destroyed by David as the establishment of historic civilization. Abraham ceased to sacrifice his firstborn, yet it was done again as one of the plagues of Egypt during its Hittite occupation. These are stories about how gods were worshiped in the past. Baal becomes the Red Bull. A calf or a goat or ewe was accepted at different points (in the ages of Taurus and Aries, for example). This was exchanged for doves which were bought outside the temple and sacrificed to feed the poor. This eventually became the income tax, with money as sacrifice to the god Mammon. The offering plate is the final leftover in the church, as tithe tax, and the communion takes over as ritual, where the 'body of christ' is eaten and blood drank in sacrifice. (Please spare me the oxymoronic 'eucharist' theological explanation, as it is still symbolic human sacrifice as is Jesus the sacrifice of God's son as well, according to literalist orthodox Roman Christian dogma. See Council of Nicea)

So....what did and what do gods gain from literal ritual sacrifice? Only the occult actually go into the subject in detail and they too, suffer from a literalist twist that allows it. Two thieves on the cross, representing the error on both 'sides'.