Why is cannibalism so despised, avoided, or even ignored altogether as a subject by cultures that actively, knowingly practice/practiced some of the most cruel things possible? At least most cannibalism itself has little to no cruelty since the person whose flesh is being eaten is typically already dead. Even the ancient Romans, notorious for everything from the uttermost tortures of their crucifixions to gladiatoral games, are supposed to have hated or feared the early Christians based on the idiotic rumor that Christians practiced cannibalism (though the unbiblical Catholic doctrine of transubstantiation practically treats communion as if this is the case each time Christians eat bread for it). Modern Christians in the West might ironically go their entire lives without even considering the moral nature of cannibalism. This issue nonetheless brushes up against some major parts of Christianity and philosophy.
To spontaneously or premeditatedly kill anyone against their will to eat them inescapably involves murder, making this kind of cannibalism Biblically illicit by default because of the act that must precede it. Even if no human flesh is actually consumed after the killing, someone who murders a person for the sake of committing cannibalism afterward has done something that is unambiguously immoral by Biblical standards. This much is not a complex matter, though it remains a crucial one. There is still the fact that this does not encompass every possible situation or motivation regarding cannibalism. What of one person who kills another with their permission in order to eat their body or of eating the body of someone who is already dead and thus who cannot be murdered to consume them?
Consent does change rape to mutual sex, physical assault to wrestling, and theft to borrowing something, so it is not as if consent does not make a Biblical difference in the nature of various actions. However, murder is any killing outside of self-defense, just warfare, capital punishment that is just both in its method and in its victim (who must be guilty of certain higher offenses to be deserving in the first place) [1], and, most controversially among even Christians who are more accurate in understanding Christian theology, killing an unborn child specifically to save the mother's life in rare circumstances (no one is morally required to die on behalf on another person if they are unwilling). Actually killing even a consenting victim begging for death would still be murder and is not among these exceptions.
Thus, a person randomly, casually asking to be killed still cannot be killed in a morally sound way, and so killing them for cannibalism would be sinful. Eating someone who has already died of hunger in a situation where one could die of hunger due to isolation, on the contrary, is a very different situation. No murder would have taken place, not even any morally valid type of killing. In this context, eating a person would not always be evil in the same way because it is not done with dehumanizing intentions, which are sinful even if the act that expresses them is not, and because even the Biblical condemnation of eating blood found in Leviticus 17:10-14 could be avoided if a body part was separated from the rest of the body and cleaned or cooked well enough. Deuteronomy 4:2 opposes adding to the obligations grounded in God's nature expressed through his commands, and cannibalism is not something one has an obligation to universally avoid simply because murder and degrading intentions/behaviors are sinful.
It might not immediately seem relevant to Christian life for most people to focus on the morality of cannibalism, given that most of us probably have not been experientially forced to contemplate the issue, but it is a subject that overlaps with several vital aspects of general philosophy and Christianity in particular. The moral nature of cannibalism clearly is connected with the moral nature of murder and the desperation of specific scenarios. While murder is far from the worst possible treatment of another person and thus is in no way the ultimate sinful way to act towards a fellow human--it is utterly pathetic that so many people or anyone at all believes otherwise--it is a capital offense according to the Bible and something that still has great gravity. If cannibalism is philosophically entangled with murder to some extent, then the nature of cannibalism is not unimportant on the Christian worldview.
[1]. The avenger of blood acts as an informal executioner of sorts that is authorized by Mosaic Law, so this morally permissible type of killing would fall under capital punishment in a sense. I address the avenger of blood directly here:
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